LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OP 
CALIFORNIA 
SANTA  CRUZ 


Enters  frnm 

atth 

Sr.  Sauti  Starr  Jordan. 


EXECUTIVE   DEPARTMENT, 
STATE  OF  CALIFORNIA, 

SACRAMENTO. 

2626  Sept.  5,   1904. 

Mr.  OSCAR  T.  SHUCK, 

SAN  FRANCISCO,  CAL. 
Dear  Sir: 

I  thank  you  for  the  copy  of  your  verses,  "The  Helping 
Hills."  Whether  the  major  part  of  the  credit  therefor  be  due 
to  you  or  to  STARR  KINO,  the  production  is  a  very  eloquent  and 
dignified  one. 

Very  truly  yours, 

GEO.     0.     PARDEE. 


\Yhen  His  Excellency  wrote  this  letter  he  had  seen  only  the 
>iniulr  poem  which  he  names. 

At  the  same  time  DR.  DAVID  STARR  JORDAN,  President  of 
LFLAND  STANFORD,  JUNIOR,  UNIVERSITY,  wrote  to  the  author  in 
like  complimentary  terms,  using  the  words  "Your  dignified  version 
<»r  the  lectures  of  THOMAS  STARR  KING." 

Dr.  Jordan  had  road  the  first  four  poems. 


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BY 

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OF      ALL  is   WELL' 

AND    OTHER    POEMS 


[  £1.50 


5Fr aurtarn 
1905 


COPYRIGHT,    1905. 

By    OSCAR    T.     SHUCK. 


PS 
35-31 


INSCRIPTION. 


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INTRODUCTION. 


Jt  was  not  difficult  to  bring  Mr.  KING  out  in  this  new  dress. 
In  addition  to  a  logical  and  strenuous  mind,  he  possessed  an 
intensely  poetic  nature,  and  his  lectures  and  sermons  tremble  with 
poetic  feeling,  and  are  clothed  in  poetic  phrases.  It  is  his  spirit 
that  vivifies  the  poems  in  this  volume;  and  in  paraphrasing  his 
language  I  have  employed  his  words,  except  in  instances  where 
the  exigencies  of  rhyme  enforced  departure. 

"Time,  the  beautifier  of  the  dead, ;)  is  keeping  his  memory 
green,  but,  for  the  benefit  of  men  and  the  glory  of  God,  may 
he  now  come  into  a  revived  and  broader  fame. 

O.  T.  S. 


NOTICE  OF  MR.   KING. 


THOMAS  STARR  KING,  the  ruling  intellect  in  California  story, 
was  a  Boston  and  San  Francisco  divine  of  Universalist-Unitarian 
belief.  He  was  born  in  New  York  City  on  December  17,  1824. 
He  became  head  of  the  family  at  the  age  of  fifteen,  on  the  death 
of  his  father,  who  was  also  a  clergyman  of  the  same  faith. 

From  the  first  he  had  no  vice,  and  gave  himself  up  to  the 
acquisition  of  knowledge.  Says  EDWIN  P.  WHIPPLE,  in  a  memoir, 
"His  mind  quivered  with  a  new  delight  as  he  felt  the  freshening 
breeze  of  CHANNING'S  religious  genius  stir  the  deeps  of  his  soul. 
Afterwards  he  mastered  the  results  of  the  great  German  and 
French  critics  of  the  Bible.  To  many  of  our  present  young  stu- 
dents exegesis  practically  means  exit  JESUS;  but  KING,  in  all  his 
eager  quest  of  truth,  and  dutiful  acknowledgement  of  the  service 
which  the  great  German  theologians  had  rendered  to  the  rational 
interpretation  of  the  Scriptures,  never  lost  his  original  hold  on 
CHRIST  JESUS  as  the  express  image  of  GOD,  as  the  Son  who  reveals 
to  us  the  Father,  as  the  ideal  embodiment  of  a  perfected  Hu- 
manity. ' ' 

Mr.  KING  began  his  ministry  at  Woburn,  Mass.,  in  the  autumn 
of  1845,  when  he  was  not  quite  twenty-one.  Before  he  had 
reached  twenty-two,  he  became  pastor  of  a  flourishing  church  in 
Charlestown,  Mass.,  succeeding  the  great  orator  and  preacher, 
EDWIN  H.  CHAPIN. 

In  November,  1848,  he  assumed  the  pastorate  of  the  Hollis- 
Street  Church,  in  Boston.  On  his  birthday  in  the  next  month, 
he  married  Miss  JULIA  WIGGIN,  of  East  Boston. 

After  eleven  years'  service  in  Boston,  Mr.  KING  accepted 
a  call  from  the  First  Unitarian  Church  of  San  Francisco.  He 
arrived  in  this  city  on  Saturday,  April  28,  1860,  and  preached 
his  first  sermon  on  the  next  morning.  Mr.  WHIPPLE  said  of  him. 
in  a  Boston  journal  at  that  time:  "Kapid  as  had  been  the  growth 
of  his  genius  as  a  fervid  and  brilliant  preacher,  it  has  been  fully 
matched  by  a  growth  as  rapid  in  his  attainments  as  a  theologian; 


and  his  rhetoric,  opulent  as  it  was  in  all  those  picturesque  images 
and  vivid  phrases  which  seize  upon  the  fancy  was  none  the  less 
the  guarded  expression  of  a  large,  clear,  full,  and  well-disciplined 
mind.  Excellent  as  were  his  powers  of  acquisition,  of  thought, 
and  of  speech,  there  was  still  something  more  excellent  in  the 
genial,  loving,  cheerful  spirit  from  which  his  powers  derived  their 
best  life,  drew  their  richest  inspiration,  and  received  their  noblest 
impulse. ' ' 

After  a  noble  and  fruitful  ministry  of  four  years  in  San 
Francisco,  Mr.  KING  died  on  the  4th  of  March,  1864. 

He  died  a  reposeful  and  triumphant  death,  at  his  home.  Only 
a  few  minutes  before  he  passed  on,  he  recited  the  23rd  Psalm 
("The  Lord  is  My  Shepherd").  Then,  in  the  vestibule  of  glory, 
he  said:  "Do  not  weep  for  me;  I  wish  you  knew  my  feelings; 
I  feel  all  the  privileges  and  greatness  of  the  future;  already  it 
looks  grand,  beautiful;  I  am  passing  away  fast;  my  feelings  are 
strange. ' ' 

It  really  seemed  that  the  author  of  all  being  had  called  this 
clean  spirit  to  higher  ' '  privileges ' '  in  his  fortieth  year. 

Mr.  King's  widow,  as  beautiful  as  Mr.  King  was  intellectual, 
became  the  wife  of  Mr.  William  Norris,  Secretary  of  the  Spring 
Valley  Water  Company.  He  died  a  few  years  ago,  leaving  to  her 
very  great  riches  in  her  second  widowhood.  Mrs.  King  herself 
passed  away,  in  the  fullness  of  years,  in  1904. 

The  children,  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  King  are  a  daughter  and  son. 
The  first  is  most  happily  married  to  Hon.  Horace  Davis,  the 
prosperous  business  man  <and  scholar,  President  of  the  Sperry 
Flour  Company,  who  has  been  President  of  the  University 
of  California,  and  who  also  represented  San  Francisco  in  Con- 
gress for  two  terms,  1877-1881.  The  son,  Frederic  K.  King,  was 
in  full  practice  as  a  lawyer  in  San  Francisco  for  seven  or  eight 
years,  leaving  the  profession  in  1895  to  enter  commercial  life, 
and  becoming  president  of  a  lumber  company. 

On  April  11,   1860,  the   day  before  he  sailed   from  New  York 


City  to  settle  in  San  Francisco,  Mr.  KING  was  given  a  lt  Unitarian 
Breakfast  Eeception ' '  at  the  Fifth-Avenue  Hotel.  There  were  300 
guests  seated  at  the  tables,  and  the  poet,  WILLIAM  CULLEN 
BRYANT,  presided. 

Eev.  Dr.  F.  H.  HEDGE,  unable  to  be  present,  wrote  a  letter  in  these 
words :  ' '  KING  is  with  you  for  a  parting  word,  and  your  fraternal 
benediction  on  his  way.  Happy  soul!  himself  a  benediction  wher- 
ever he  goes,  benignly  dispensing  the  graces  of  his  life  wherever 
he  carries  the  wisdom  of  his  word. ' ' 

For  myself— I  am  thankful  for  great  riches;  I  have  come  into 
a  vast  estate.  This  meek  and  mighty  shepherd  has  lifted  me  out 
of  the  fog  and  whirlwind  of  a  great  city  and  led  me  along 
delectable  paths,  ( '  beside  still  waters. ' '  He  has  let  me  walk  with 
him  over  Elysian  Fields,  bearing  himself  so  kingly,  so  knowingly, 
holding  my  hand  in  his,  and  discoursing  of  the  eternal  verities. 

There  is  a  passage  in  the  Hebrew  scriptures  which  I  have  never 
seen  discussed:  "Thy  thoughts  shall  be  established."  No  vain 
thought  has  ever  been  "established".  If  ever  thought  of  man 
has  been  established,  so  have  been  the  thoughts  of  THOMAS  STARR 
KING.  And,  as  EMERSON  has  said  of  TAYLOR,  the  Shakespeare  of 
divines,  his  words  are  music  in  my  ear. 

O.    T.    S. 


IflfttlB 


PAGE 

I — Keeping  the  Heart 19 

II— The  Ideal  Life 27 

III — The  Harmonies  of  Nature 35 

IV— The  Helping  Hills 43 

V — A  Kingdom  in  the  Air 51 

VI — Deliverance  From  the  Fear  of  Death 91 

VII — Yosemite 99 

VIII— Existence  and  Life 63 

IX — Substance  and  Show 73 

X— Sight  and  Insight 109 


KEEPING  THE  HEART. 


Written  after  a  study  of  THOMAS  STARR  KING'S  Lecture  on 
The  Heart,  and  the  Issues  of  Life,"  delivered  in  1857. 


Keep  your  heart,  brother:  You  must  grow. 
This  is  the  law — be  wise  and  know. 

We  are  so  bound  that  all  our  art  and  power 

Cannot  create  a  pebble  or  a  flower; 

Of  our  own  selves  we  cannot  even  live, 

Yet  does  our  quality  its  color  give 

To  all  that  we  receive;  we  re-create 

The  world  in  our  own  likeness,  and  so  decide  our  fate; 

The  life  that  flows  from  God  so  constant  well, 

We  may  pervert  into  the  life  of  hell. 

Persons  are  points,  in  all  their  many  states, 
From  which  the  boundless  universe  radiates ; 
There  is  a  light  in  each  which  outward  streams, 
And  meets  and  mixes  with  all  other  beams; 
Our  inmost  state  is  felt  so  close,  so  far, 
By  nearest  grass-blade  and  remotest  star; 
It  touches  every  object  that  we  see, 
And  every  fact  that  has  been  or  shall  be. 


KEEPING     THE     HEART. 


External  nature  has  the  same  for  all ; 

On  all  alike  her  varied  colors  fall; 

The  sun  and  stars,  and  all  there  is  of  light, 

The  earth,  the  air,   the  landscapes,   and  the  night, 

Enfold  us  all,  and  the  same  background  place 

Before  the  wondering  eyes  of  all  the  race; 

But  impulses  and  aptitudes  that  lie 

Deep  in  our  being's  core,  diversify 

The  world  as  wide  as  if  we  dwelt  afar, 

Distributed  each  upon  a  different  star. 

Some  men  look  everywhere  with  penetrant  eyes, 
And  use  the  world  to  think  in  and  grow  wise; 
Nothing  eludes  their  intellectual  might, 
They  analyze  the  air,  untwist  the  light, 
Take  up  the  carpets  of  the  globe  and  bore 
With  countless  drills  into  the  spacious  floor; 
They  weigh  the  planets,  and,  audacious,  place 
Their  measuring-lines  across  the  deeps  of  space; 
Their  central  passion  is  a  thirst  to  know; 
The  universe  is  a  school,  in  which  they  grow. 

Another  is  labor's  slave;  he  tugs  his  best; 
And  night,  true  to  its  purpose,  gives  him  rest. 
Their  booths  in  camps  and  gorges  others  pitch, 
And  use  the  world  to  trade  in,  and  grow  rich. 


KEEPING     THE     HEART.  23 

Some  find  a  pleasure-ground  for  giddy  joy; 
Others  a  scene  their  passions  to  employ. 
Others,  again,  a  garden  in  the  sky 
In  which  the  stars  are  blossoms  to  the  eye; 
Blooms  wanted  more  for  their  poetic  light 
Than  for  their  worth  in  the  astronomer's  sight; 
Air  richer  for  the  hues  which  it  presents 
Than  for  its  uses  and  their  consequence; 
The  mountains  grander  for  their  misty  dress, 
Their  green  and  snow  and  shadowy  loveliness. 
Than  for  their  influence  to  the  climates  driven 
Or  their  house-keeping  to  the  nations  given. 

Some  people  seem  to  carry  extra  sheaves 

Of  sunbeams  in  their  bosom;  carols  of  birds; 

Sweet  tints  of  nature's  green;  and  odorous  leaves; 

Booklets  of  melody,  and  kindest  words; 

All  these  they  shed  as  freely  in  the  air, 

And  sprinkle  over  nature  everywhere. 

Who  bears  a  music-box  within  his  heart, 

With  it  the  sun's  great  pulse  will  seem  to  beat; 

And,  too,  the  trees,  and  flowers  in  gladness  start, 

And  pour,  their  voices,  too,  in  music  sweet. 

At  times  our  temperaments  and  aptitudes, 
The  strong  and  sudden  stirrings  of  our  moods, 
Seem  to  assail  our  quality  and  tone, 
And  take  the  captive  heart  to  be  their  own; 


24  KEEPING     THE     HEART. 

But  soon  they  sail  away  like   clouds — their  power 
Is  the  swift  blackness  only  of  a  shower. 
Our  moral  states  stay  with  us  while  they  change ; 
They  lead  the  spirit  over  wider  range; 
They  wrap  our  being  closer,  and  have  more 
That  touches  destiny.     They  either  soar 
Through  fogs  with  us  to  altitudes  of  light, 
Or  pall  their  wings  o'erhead  like  veils  of  night. 

Each  nature  has  some  passion  to   deplore 
That  strives  to  gnaw  its  way  into  the  core 
Of  character,  to  be  seated  there  for  ill. 
No  sin  in  this;  but  rise  in  strength  of  will, 
A  human  will,  and  fight  the  thing  of  hate, 
Or  your  responsibility  and  sin  are  great. 
Courage,   O  brother!   when  the  pulse  beats   fast- 
Fight  with  it,  or  become  possessed  by  it  at  last! 

Keep  the  heart  safe   from  Envy — sour-faced  thing 

That  sickens  at  the  carol  others  sing. 

Pity  and  dread!  that  heart  that  now  beats  warm 

May  be  corroded  by  such  selfish  form; 

Infected  through,  so  that  it  cannot  feel 

A  generous  pleasure  in  another's  weal; 

Evil  must  smoulder  in  its  blood 

When  others  are  buoyed  on  fortune's  flood; 

The  pain  and  joy  that  others  gain 

In  its  own  fibres  waken  pain; 


KEEPING     THE     HEART.  25 

Its  sensibility  burnt  so  long, 

It  thinks  itself  has  suffered  some  great  wrong! 

When  Avarice  has  control,  jaundice  has  dyed 
The  whole  of  life.     The  starry  heavens  hide 
Their  glory;  the  liberal  earth  and  sea 
Have  for  the  shrivelled  heart  no  sympathy. 

The  vice  of  License  plays  a  tragic  part, 
Contaminates  the  life-blood  of  the  heart; 
Intemperate  pleasure  is  the  innermost  woe 
Of  all  that  poisoned  natures  ever  know. 

Keep  your  heart,  brother:  have  a  resolute  mind 
To  hold  the  safety-paths  that  all  may  find; 
Life  flows  to  you  from  purity  supreme — 
Nourish  no  passion  that  will  taint  the  stream. 

Back  of  all  sins  is  Sin!     Our  central  foe; 
Armed  always  for  the  spirit's  overthrow: 
Grapple  it;  unlaxing;  in  a  holy  strife; 
And  God  will  drive  that,   also,    from  your  life. 

Keep  your  heart,  brother:  see — and  think — and  do, 
From  your  own  inward  monitor's  point  of  view: 
Then  shall  God's  purpose  in  you  be  complete, 
And  all  life's  arteries  ripple  pure  and  sweet. 


THE  IDEAL  LIFE. 


Written  after  a  study  of  THOMAS  STARR  KING'S  Lecture  en- 
titled   "Living    for   Ideas    and   Principles,"    delivered    in    1856. 

Things  are  accounted  noble  just  as  they 
Ideas  and  principles  to  the  mind  convey. 
A  grain  of  sand  by  gravitation  held, 
Is  just  as  truly  by  the  law  impelled 
As  any  mighty  object,  far  or  near; 
And  illustrates  the  principle  as  clear; 
Faithful  in  this  as  all  the  stars  that  race 
Forever  on  in  firmamental  space. 

A  chunk  of  common  quartz  does  not  imply 
A  market  value  to  the  naturalist's  eye; 
But,  tell  him  that  by  slicing  it  in  two, 
Some  plays  of  nature  will  reward  his  view — 
The  force  of  crystallization  will  unfold — 
And  he  will  hold  it  as  a  lump  of  gold. 

A  loadstone  is  but  ordinary  ore 
To  the  philosopher,  and  remains  no  more 
Until  you  hint  its  real,  living  robe — 
Magnetic  qualities  that  charge  the  globe. 


30  THE     IDEAL     LIFE. 

All  valueless  in  itself,  a  piece  of  glass, 

Triangular,  a  multitude  might  pass; 

Yet  treasure  to  the  student  when  he  finds 

The  miracles  it  works,  the  colors  it  untwines; 

That  with  it  he  can  paint  his  walls  all  rainbow-bright, 

And  loose  the  tints  that  braid  into  a  beam  of  light. 

Learns  the  philosopher,  at  last,  to  stand 
Reverent,  before  such  riches  at  his  hand. 
Things  we  believe  have  nothing  to  convey, 
He  truly  sees,  and  knows,  and  owns  their  sway; 
He  sees  that  nothing  in  the  universe 
But  has  its  proper  story  to  rehearse ; 
Some  principle  in  nature,  certain,  kind, 
Whispering  to  the  reverent  student-mind; 
Sometimes  a  fossil  or  a  pebble  is  the  clew 
To  geologic  systems  founded  firm  and  true. 

If  be,  material  forms  have  worth,  we  find, 

By  reason  of  the  principles  enshrined, 

The  full  appreciation  of  a  man  must  be 

Just  as  imperative,  impartial,  free. 

What  spiritual  principle  is  apparent,  clear? 

What  are  the  thoughts  and  things  he  holds  most  dear? 

His  life — what  was  the  old,  what  is  the  new? 

What  is  the  vital  truth  that  threads  him  through? 


THE     IDEAL     LIFE.  31 

What  does  he  stand  for?    'Tis  this  question  probes 

His  real  value  underneath  his  robes; 

'T  is  this  will  show  how  faithful  he  has  been 

To  every  happy  privilege  of  men; 

How  much  his  fellowship  has  been  with  God; 

Where  have  his  feet  at  times  in  secret  trod? 

Seek  not  to  know  his  fortune  or  his  birth, 

As  though  in  this  you  might  attest  his  worth, 

But  feel  the  moral  frame  of  his  career, 

What  purposes  he  lives  for,  now  and  here ; 

Go,  knock  upon  the  substance  of  his  soul, 

And  note  the  central  sentiments  that  control — 

Does  he  ring  hollow?     Or  does  the  musical  shout 

Of  some  eternal  principle  ring  out? 

Some  principle,  mean  or  noble,  holds  us  here, 
And  gives  our  estimate  in  the  spiritual  sphere. 
Sometimes  we  meet  a  brother,  clean  and  wise, 
Obedient  not  only,  but  personifies 
A  principle — walks  kingly  among  men : 
Truth  ever  is  unfolding  in  his  ken; 
Honor  is  so  ingrained — word  good  as  bond — 
To  every  pledge  such  characters  respond. 
His  dealing  with  a  man  in  open  trade 
Is  virtually  a  sacrament — so  is  he  made. 
Blood  is  the  current  of  his  physical  frame, 
But  no  more  than  God's  spirit  is  aflame 


32  THE     IDEAL     LIFE. 

In  all  his  being,  its  passion  ever  fresh- 
Truth,  honor,  charity,  intrenched  in  flesh. 

Not  principles  abstract,  defended  by  the  mind, 
Published  by  paper,  and  with  logic  twined, 
But  principles  incarnate,  looking  through 
Eyes  human,  speaking  human,  too; 
Moving  in  homes  and  trading  in  the  stores, 
And  where  the  fiercer  mart  of  commerce  roars; 
Eloquent  in  caucus  and  in  senate-rooms 
As  by  the  lake  or  'mid  the  garden-blooms; 
Principles  which  all  beneficence  enfold, 
Signing  subscription-papers  and  scattering  gold. 

A  man  who  holds  no  principles  like  these, 

A  man  the  Spirit  does  not  touch  to  seize 

Eternal  things,  is  living  in  eclipse 

Without  their  cheer  upon  his  heart  and  lips; 

He  stands  for  nothing  and  has  nothing  got 

In  separate  right;  angels  bewail  his  lot. 

What  will  he  do  when  sometime  forced  to  face 

The  deeper  problems  that  confront  the  race ! 

Principles  not  only  prompt  us  what  to  do, 

But  pour  their  peace  into  our  bosom,  too; 

Adversity?     Be  our  ideals  true, 

They  will   array  themselves   and  bear  us  through; 


THE     IDEAL     LIFE.  33 

In  terrible  moments,  when  our  darlings  die, 
There  are  great  principles  will  tell  us  why. 

Over  us  is  a  boundless,  sparkling  sky, 
But  deeper  heaven,  diviner  promise  lie 
For  all  who  will  a  principle  acclaim, 
And  make  obedience  their  moral  aim. 

Thin  are  the  walls  that  in  partition  rise 
Between  the  spirit-world  and  that  before  our  eyes; 
We  may  look  through  their  alabaster  veils,  above, 
Where  God  is  shrouded  in  the  glory  of  his  love. 


THE    HARMONIES   OF   NATURE. 


^armottt?fi  of  Nature 


Written  after  reading  THOMAS  STARR  KING'S  lecture,  entitled 
"Living  Water  From  Lake  Tahoe" ,  deliv:red  in  1863. 


Emerald  and  blue,  set  in  such  lofty  place ! 
There  's  not  a  soul  on  earth  so  pure,  through  grace. 
A  heart  that  lets  no  evil  linger  near, 
A  heart  whose  agitation  is  so  clear, 
A  heart  whose  joy  is  ever  so  unstained, 
Would  be  a  heart  that  had  perfection  gained. 
It  would  be  fit  for  heaven;  nay,  it  might  well 
Repose  in  heaven  wherever  it  should  dwell. 

All  round  this  mountain  goblet  glories  shine, 
The  pomp  of  garniture  from  hand  divine; 
Landscapes  that  fascinate,  high  lights  that  glow, 
The  sunset  radiance  on  mountain  snow; 
The  lordly  pines,  no  jungles  at  their  feet, 
Throwing  aroma,  all,  so  far,  so  sweet; 
The  towering  peaks,  on  which  the  tired  mind  rests; 
The  sternness  of  eternal  crags  and  crests; 
From  all  whose  lifted  tops  the  singing  breeze 
Calls  to  the  far-off  stretches  of  the  seas! 


38  THE     HARMONIES     OF     NATURE. 

Of  all  its  multiple  dowers  that  charm  and  bless, 
Its  color  is  its  sovereign  loveliness. 
A  mile  of  richest  green  rings  round  the  shore; 
Then  tenderest  blue  shades  its  wide  bosom  o'er. 
The  colors  do  not  blend,  but  separate  flow,— 
Due  to  their  different,  awful  depths  below; 
A  floor  of  lapis  lazuli  so  vast, 
Within  a  ring  of  flaming  emerald  cast; 
Or  clear-defined  as  are  the  walls  of  gem 
That  beautify  the  New  Jerusalem. 

Pure  color  in  all  nature,  studied  true, 
Brings  the  all-loving  Father  into  view. 
The  color  of  the  world  is  all  a  part 
Of  the  world's  gospel;  and  the  reverent  heart 
Swells  at  the  utterance  of  truth  and  grace 
Flashed  in  such  glory  from  the  Father's  face. 

Color  is  wed  to  purity.     About  our  lake  are  seen 
Only  the  bright  and  spotless,  and  the  clean, 
Stones  that  are  almost  precious  on  the  beach, 
And  granite  sands  along  its  lengthened   reach. 
Dip  from  its  white-edged  ripples  or  its  heart 
Or  from  the  foam  that  breaks  above  the  blue, 
You  dip  what  would  befit  baptismal  part, 
You  dip  the  pure  and  true. 


THE     HAKMOJ'IES     OF     NATURE.  39 


The  purity  of  nature  is  a  part 
Of  what  to  man  is  given 
To  know  the  sanctity  of  God, 
The  certaint/  of  heaven. 


The  flowers  of  nature  do  not  robe  the  globe 
In  splendor  like  the  rocks  and  snows 
That  dress  uncultivated  hills. 

God  shows  his  tenderness  through  awful  things; 

Fact  both  in  science  and  theology — 

Seest  thou  't  is  true? 

What  savage  chasm  must  the  lake-bed  be! 

Empty  the  water  from  that  measureless  bowl, 
And  desolation  unrelieved  would  spread.- 
If  God  were  only  the  Almighty  God, 
If  it  should  please  him  to  impress  us  most 
With  his  infinitude,  and  make  us  bow  with  dread, 
Omnipotence  could  make  the  mountains  breathe 
Such  fear  that  men  would  turn  and  fly, 
And  landscapes  frown  monotony  and  gloom. 


The  utmost  desolation  that  we  know 
Sends  out  the  sweetest  influences  that  flow 


40  THE     HARMONIES     OF     NATURE. 

In  nature.     Turn  ye  to  the  moon's  full  light- 
How  soothing,  kind,  beneficent,  and  bright ! 
So  patient  and  so  pitiful,  she  seems; 
Mysterious  calm  drops  from  her  silver  beams. 
But  blasted  is  that  orb  that  gleams  so  fair, 
Sahara  is  a  garden  in  compare. 


If,  as  some  say,  religion  is  alloy, 

All  hostile  to  the  natural  good  and  joy 

For  which  the  heart  of  man  sends  up  its  cry; 

And  doubt  the  burden  of  its  prophecy; 

/  would  not  think  that  earth,  and  sea  and  sky, 

Would  all  be  tinted  to  enchant  the  eye ; 

/  would  not  think  that  storms  would  break  away 

In  rainbows,  and  the  sunset  clouds  display 

The  sensuous  splendors  of  their  airy  sphere; 

And  oceans  with  their  voices  ever  near, 

And  mountains  which  the  azure  mists  enrobe, 

Crown  and  complete  the  beauty  of  the  globe! 

I  like  the  Quaker's  simpleness  and  calm; 

His  work  and  worship  have  their  soothing  balm; 

But  nature  never  is  in  russet  clad; 

Her  robe  is  beauteous  and  her  heart  is  glad; 


THE     HARMONIES     OF     NATURE.  41 

The  flowers  that  bloom  eternal  are  not  gray; 
On  forest-harps  the  winds  forever  play. 

I  bow  to  Calvin's  character  so  strong; 
His  life  and  service  to  the  race  belong; 
Great  educator,  well  ordained  to  bless 
By  rugged  statement  of  God's  holiness; 
But  nature's  colors  never  are  his  own; 
Her  landscapes  never  take  his  sombre  tone. 

What  zeal,  what  sacred  intuitions  move 
Within  the  girdled  friar's  heart  of  love! 
How  many  holy  triumphs  she  has  won 
Who  wears  the  simple  bonnet  of  the  nun ! 
But  buoyant  nature  will  assent  to  wear 
Monastic  drapery  only  here  and  there ; 
The  harmonies  of  natural  beauty  roll 
Far  up  into  the  chords  that  thrill  the  soul. 


The  universe  is  the  happy  home  of  God; 
Over  its  gem-laid  floor  his  feet  have  trod; 
Beauty  lines  all  its  walls,  draped  by  his  hand; 
Created  charms,  all  for  his  pleasure  stand. 
The  spirit  calls  thee  to  commune  with  him; 
Let  not  the  ear  be  dull,  the  eye  be  dim; 


42  THE     HARMONIES     OF     NATURE. 

All  that  thou  seest  lies  in  Love's  embrace ; 
Love  holds  the  sumless  worlds  that  play  in  space, 
Sprinkles  the  brilliance  of  the  lakes  and  seas, 
And  binds  them  into  mighty  harmonies; 
Assigns  each  natural  force  its  part  to  fill, 
And  sees  them  all  obey  the  central  will. 


THE  HELPING  HILLS. 


Written    after    reading    "Lessons    from    the    Sierra    Nevada", 
one  of  THOMAS  STARR  KING'S  lectures,  delivered  in  1863. 

Always  such  things  as  mountain  thoughts  there  are, 
And  mountain  principles  that  lift  afar. 
Marshes  and  mists  provoke  our  stress  and  strife, 
When  upland  chains  might  run  through  every  life. 
The  Master  on  the  mount  in  silent  prayer- 
Girt  with  illimitable  vision  there — 
More  truly  knelt  upon  a  mount  within, 
So  far  from  where  his  holy  feet  had  been. 

To  every  nature  higher  wisdom  calls; 

At  times,  the  hush  of  heavenly  music  falls; 

Caught  from  no  latitude  where  passions  come, 

But  where  each  willing  mind  may  pitch  its  home. 

We  do  not  keep  the  company  we  may, 

But  from  our  own  best  moods  we  turn  away; 

With  our  sage  monitors  we  disagree, 

Cleave  to  our  fetters  and  reject  the  free. 

Bold  ridges  rise  within  our  conscious  bound; 
The  heights  of  moral  truth  are  all  around; 


46  THE     HELPING     HILLS. 

But  we  disclaim  to  reach  their  happy  goal  * 

And  stand  within  the  scenery  of  the  soul. 

We  do  not  seek  their  slopes  (so  passing  strange !) , 

Or  lift  our  vision  to  their  noble  range. 

We  burrow  in  the  glen,  or  stroll  the  moor, 

And  murmur  that  life's  prospect  is  so  poor. 

Genius  approaches  close  to  all  our  kind; 
Touches  the  stolid  and  invites  the  blind. 
Its  essence  is  for  few,  but  the  loud  call 
To  banquet  on  its  knowledge  is  for  all. 
Raised  from  the  flats  of  life  to  Dickens'  ground 
How  much  of  love  and  sympathy  is  found ! 
On  all  our  nature's  ways,  into  each  nook, 
And  out  upon  its  motley  plains  we  look,    j— 


History's  far-reaching  vista !     How  we  dwell 
On  every  classic  page  that  caught  it  well ! 
What  light  and  lift  to  ordinary  lot 
The  intellect  and  learning  of  a  Scott ! 
On  Newton  and  on  Herschel  what  depends, 
u  Far  as  creation's  ample  range  extends"  ! 
Whose  penetrant  and  all-prophetic  eyes 
Beheld  the  differing  glories  of  the  skies !  * 


(*  One  star  differeth  from  another  star  in  glory.     St.  Paul.) 


THE     HELPING     HILLS.  47 

Humboldt  and  Agassiz !     What  wealth  we  find — 
Dug  from  the  earth, — stored  in  the  human  mind ! 
Stands  out  so  vast — thanks  to  their  searching  probe— 
The  grandeur  of  the  science  of  the  globe. 
The  plane  of  Shakespeare !    What  resources  lie 
Reserved  for  ardent  souls  that  press  so  high  I 

All  the  rich  books,  historian,  artist,  sage, 

Thinkers  supreme  of  every  land  and  age, 

Pure  and  beneficent  as  highland  breeze, 

What  thrilling  contact  comes  from  such  as  these! 

Their  vast  capacity  invites  us  up, 

To  drink  of  Learning's  overflowing  cup. 

No  noble  prospects  spread  before  the  eye 
Until  we  pitch  the  tent  both  firm  and  high. 
Our  spiritual  being  holds  a  vast  estate, 
With  peaks  of  vision  for  the  low  and  great. 
Imperial  Socrates !     He  lived  high  up, 
And,  when  he  turned  not  from  the  fatal  cup, 
He  mounted  higher,  and  surveyed  our  life — 
World  of  ideal  and  material  strife. 
Eternity  and  time  approved  him  there, 
On  the  lone  summit  with  its  keen  pure  air. 

Paul  lived  high  up,  and  walked  by  sight  so  true, 
In  altitudes  that  touched  the  heavenly  blue. 


48  THE     HELPING     HILLS. 

ONE,  unapproachable  in  vaster  light, 
Poured  his  rich  unction  from  sublimer  height; 
Ancient  as  being,  ever  green  in  youth, 
HE  saw  the  landscape  of  eternal  truth. 

We  are  to  live  within  the  world ;  so  true ; 

And  feel  its  passions  which  we  ma.y  subdue. 

Work  in  its  interests,  and  keep  full  aim 

To  be  responsive  unto  Duty's  claim. 

Yet  stretches  of  our  life  and  thought  should  lie 

As  if  upheld  by  the  wide-arching  sky, 

Or  on  Sierra  slopes,  where  the  hot  play 

Of  worldly  forces  has  no  lot  or  stay. 

Believe,  O  Soul,  that  God  has  formed  thee  free, 
Of  his  own  spirit,  no  mean  force  to  be. 
The  whisperings  that  visit  every  heart, 
Stand  still  and  hear !    Behold  and  note  the  part 
Mysterious  powers  enact.    They  are  divine. 
To  catch  some  gleams  at  times  is  surely  thine. 
Faith,  Hope  and  Charity,  these  three  abide, 
They  stand  in  blended  glory  at  thy  side; 
Would  swiftly  lift  thee  out  of  chains  and  clogs 
To  the  safe  mountain-peaks  that  jut  through  fogs; 
To  slopes  far  off  in  the  horizon's  light- 
Believe  in  them,  hold  to  them  with  thy  might; 


THE     HELPING     HILLS.  49 

Ascend  with  them  and  breathe  the  upper  air, 
Stand  in  the  Everlasting  Presence  there. 

Our  feet  may  be  supported,  now  and  then, 
Above  our  natural  level.     It  is  when 
We  look  up  to  the  hills.    They  are  not  dumb, 
Nor  impotent;  from  thence  our  help  will  come. 
New  views,  mysterious  beauty,  grander  lights, 
Break  on  the  spirit  from  those  emerald  heights; 
Translated  from  the  rugged  roads  we  trod, 
We  walk  with  mighty  men  who  walked  with  God. 


A    KINGDOM   IN   THE   AIR. 


A  iKittgtom  in  %  Air 


Written  after  reflecting  upon  THOMAS  STARR  KINO'S  Lecture  on 
: Music",  delivered  in  1S58. 


Two  prominent  channels  lead  to  outward  scenes 
And  give  communion  with  all  natural  means: 
While  eye  is  introducing  to  the  mind, 
The  ear  the  highway  to  the  heart  shall  find. 

Blindness  whets  other  sense,  makes  them  atone 
In  some  degree  for  the  fine  sense  that's  gone. 
Pathology  tells  us  that  the  total  blind 
Become  in  character  more  spiritual  and  refined. 
In  total  deafness,  though,  the  nature  dries, 
It  will  no  sister  senses  energize; 
It  hardens,  so  experiments  declare- 
Rather  than  strengthens  them,  tends  to  impair. 
(Not  always  so;  sweetness,  nobility, 
Defeat  impediments  of  infirmity.) 

In  tendencies  that  thus  these  organs  bind 
Some  strinking  testimony  we  shall  find. 
In  education  we  can  spare  the  eye 
Better  than  have  the  ear  grow  dull  and  dry. 


54  A     KINGDOM     IX     THE    AIR. 

Color  and  light  in  infinite  charm  unroll, 
But  sound  has  influence  closer  to  the  soul. 
As  gate  to  intellect,  eye  is  the  sense; 
The  ear  is  avenue  to  the  sentiments; 
A  heaven,  all  destitute  of  light,  could  be; 
Not  without  love  and  praise,  and  song's  sweet  mys- 
tery. 

The  cherubim  may  have  the  keener  eyes, 
The  seraphim  enjoy  the  higher  prize. 


Music  is  not  a  copy,  nor  a  thing; 

It  is  a  pure  creation.     What  we  call 

The  music  of  nature,  does  not  tune  or  ring 

Like  organized  sounds;  no  choruses  fall 

From  nature;  no  hymns,  no  symphonies; 

It  is  thrown  out  unwrought  in  massy  forms; 

The  voice  of  cataracts,  the  melodies 

Of  voluble  birds,  the  sweep  of  storms, 

The  play  of  winds  and  leaves  in  the  wildnerness;- 

All  these  hint  harmonies,  but  do  not  express. 

Perhaps  there  is  a  music  of  the  spheres: 
We  may  imagine  it,  we  nothing  hear. 
What  will  the  spirit  think  that  ever  hears 
Our  own  globe's  music  flowing  rich  and  clear? 


A     KINGDOM    IN    THE    AIR.  55 

If  some  blind  spirit  could  be  fixed  in  space 
While  earth  rolled  by  him  with  its  song  borne  on, 
What  would  the  thought  be,  in  that  far-off  place, 
When  the  vast-pulsing  unison  was  gone : 
Warble  of  happy  birds,  the  stir  of  bees, 
The  sweeping  of  the  winds  in  every  zone, 
The  sheets  of  sound  compelling  every  breeze, 
And  the  else-starry  skies  in  storm-clouds  thrown ! 

The  moan  and  motion  of  great  forest  trees; 

Low,  lisping  penitence  of  peaceful  seas; 

The  thunderous  mellow  bass  of  ocean  stirred, 

Billowing  so  high,  in  clouds  and  mountains  heard, 

And  the  momentum  of  its  mighty  shock 

Upon  a  thousand  leagues  of  stubborn  rock: 

The  spirit  might  imagine,  list'ning  nigh, 

It  was  a  mighty  ofeaan  rolling  by, 

Touched  on  each  key,  alive  on  stop  and  rod, 

And  roused  by  every  pedal  to  the  praise  of  God. 

The  deep  sea's  elocution  to  the  shore. 

How  mellow !    And  how  purged  of  all  things  coarse 

The  thunder  of  its  swelling  evermore, 

The  serried  roll  of  its  tumultuous  force ! 

And   on   the   beach   how   gently   lisp   the   ripples   in 

their  prance, 
Like  little  white  mice  nibbling  at  the  sand  as  they 

advance. 


56  A     KINGDOM    IN     THE    AIR. 

(No  wonder  that  Demosthenes  spent  such  time 
In  elocutionary  practice  on  the  shore, 
''Filling  his  mouth,"  as  Mrs.  Partington  said  sublime, 
"With  paving  stone,  that  he  might  be  an  oratorio." 
Trying,  he  possibly  was,  to  catch 
Secrets  of  volume  and  tenderness  in  sound; 
History,  in  this,  does  not  disclose  his  match; 
Through  coming  time  he  will  be  matchless  found.) 

The  melancholy  crescendo  of  a  blast, 
Piercing  a  brotherhood  of  pines  in  balm, 
With  what  gradations  artful-fine  at  last, 
It  sighs  away  its  violent  life  in  calm! 
Hark,  in  the  summer,  to  the  dactyls  sweet 
Of  Canada-whistler  or  the  Peabody-bird 
In  mountain  valleys  where  they're  won't  to  meet 
And  where  their  notes  are  fullest,  loudest  heard ; 
Feel  the  surprise  of  that  soprano  high, 
Mark  how  it  slides  and  tapers  into  pause, 
Like  polished  sting  of  bee  swift  winging  by, 
In  which  even  microscope  can  find  no  raggedness  or 
flaws. 

Nature  instructs  us  best  in  management  of  sound; 
Before  her  purity  of  tone  we  reverent  stand; — 
All-clear  like  that  with  which  the  clouds  are  wound; 
Transparency  of  air,  the  sea-foam  on  the  sand; 


A    KINGDOM    IN    THE    AIR.  57 

And  sparkle  of  rivers:  all  confess 
God's  everlasting  purity  and  holiness. 

That  nature's  music  is  a  pure  creation 

Appears,  because  there  is  no  combination 

Of  sentiment,  idea,  emotion,  in  all  sound; 

Man  is  the  organ  the  Infinite  has  found 

To  add  this  fullness  of  creative  force 

To  Beauty's  treasury  and  to  Life's  resource. 

When,  through  the  waves  of  sound,  some  mighty 

thought, 

Or  sentiment,  by  human  genius  caught, 
Full-operates  the  mind  and  heart  to  win, 
Then  true  sublimities  of  sound  begin. 

Greater  than  Shakespeare  was  Mozart 

In  subtlety  of  genius  and  in  art. 

I  do  not  know  how  Lear  or  Hamlet  swelled 

On  the  great  dramatist's  vision  till  compelled 

To  fashion  forth,  under  his  artful  tact, 

In  rhythmic  symmetry  and  stately  fact; 

But  hardly  could  the  processes  have  been 

So  supernatural,  mystical,  akin 

To  the  Divine  calling  of  the  world  from  naught, 

As  the  grand  opera-passages  that  Mozart  wrought. 

They  did  not  come  in  thin,  melodious  stream ; 
He  did  not  amplify  them  from  a  theme; 


58  A     KINGDOM     IN     THE    AIR. 

He  did  not  range  them  by  his  instruments, 
Composing  them  in  harmony  to  the  sense; — 
They  burst  full-voiced  from  a  celestial  choir, 
Or  from  an  orchestra  ideal,  nigher, 
Into  his  mind — thence  copied  in  a  score, 
To  haunt  the  soul  of  man  forevermore. 

It  was  as  if  the  whole  act  of  "King  John," 

With  all  its  characters  and  movement  on; 

The  words  and  rhythm,  the  stirring  passions,  woke 

Like  flash,  into  the  poet's  mind  had  broke; 

All  things  at  hand  for  acting  ready,  ripe; 

Conditioned  to  be  clothed  in  lasting  type; — 

To  stay  forever  in  the  uppermost  range 

Of  intellectual  creations,  vast  and  strange. 

From  instances  like  this,  which  the  musical  sphere 
More  furnishes  than  other  tract  of  art, 
We  catch  deep  hintings,  ever  fleet  but  clear, 
The  footfalls  of  the  Infinite  mind  and  heart. 
Sustained  by  those,  nature  keeps  orderly  place, 
A  starry  anthem  in  the  fane  of  space. 

The  miracle  of  genius  is  all  fathomless. 
Beethoven's  passages  in  their  stateliness, 
Were  sudden  in  his  subtle  thought  comprised 
At  time  his  earthly  ear  was  paralyzed. 


A     KINGDOM     IX     THE    AIR.  59 

'Twas  in  this  state,  from  impulses  that  stole 
On  the  still  active  ear  of  his  great  soul, 
Upheld  on  steady  spiritual  wings,  that  he 
Wrought  out  the  architecture  of  harmony. 

Tis  Handel  leads  us  to  the  best  of  states; 

The  highest  music  on  Religion  waits; 

In  art,  one's  fortune  is  to  hear  "Messiah" — 

The  soul,  in  earthly  clogs,  can  soar  no  higher. 

His  nature  knew  the  deepest  sentiment 

Of  Christendom,  and  was  full  competent 

To  shrine  it  in  the  structure  of  his  art : 

In  harmonies  that  held  the  mind  and  heart. 

'Tis  rare  to  hear  a  passage  from  Mendelssohn 
That  seems  to  beauteous  fulness  to  have  grown; 
It  seems  to  have  been  plucked  a  little  hard, 
And  scarcely  ripe,  its  state  will  warn  and  ward 
The  seeker.     But  Mozart !     His  wealthy  mind 
Shook  off  full  melodies,  their  juices  well  combined, 
Blooming  as  peaches,  mellow,  luscious,  sweet; 
In  richness,  for  an  angel's  palate  meet. 

Sublimity  held  Handel:  for  he  saw 

The  varied  play  of  nature's  perfect  law, 

And  that  solemnity  of  holiness 

Was  veined  with  a  perennial  tenderness — 


60  A    KINGDOM    IN    THE    AIR. 

As  if  the  Book  of  Ruth,  delightful  yet, 
Were  in  the  substance  of  the  pentateuch  set. 

Beethoven's  genius  rises  to  the  mind, 
Wayward  and  wild  and  sea-like,  unconfined; 
Heaving  from  troughs  that  lie  in  sullen  night, 
Bold  crests  of  melody  that  flash  in  light. 

The  florid  Donizetti,  in  rhetorical  flow, 

Whose  notes  abated  just  a  decade  ago; 

The  sparkling  Auber,  too;  the  honey-sweet  Bellini; 

Weber  so  weird ;  and,  luscious  all,  Rossini ; 

Schubert,  whose  genius  heavenly  powers  employ; 

Haydn  of  sunny  temper,  full  of  joy: — 

Attend  such  symphonies.     Imparted  there 

A  quality  distinguishes  each  chorus,  air. 

Because  the  master's  inmost  state  is  lord 
Of  every  note  and  cadence,  every  chord, 
Although  its  kingdom  is  that  of  the  air, 
Substantial,  music  is,  we  must  declare. 

Of  music's  spirit,  all  we  cultivate, 
In  its  devout  expressions  opened  here, 
Will  go  as  preparation  for  our  state, 
When  every  mystery  shall  develop  clear. 


A    KINGDOM    IN    THE    AIR.  61 

We'll  not  speak  German  in  that  world  afar, 

No  dialects  will  worship  in  its  fanes, 

But  /  believe  Authority  will  not  bar 

Beethoven's  "Andantes"  from  celestial  strains; 

We  will  slough  off,  no  doubt,  our  English  tongue 

When  our  mortality  shall  sink  in  calm, 

But  when  the  gathering  of  the  redeemed  have  sung 

Consummately,  the  "Anthem  to  the  Lamb," 

One  stroph  may  be — pulsed  with  seraphic  fire — 

The   "Hallelujah   Chorus"   of   "Messiah." 


EXISTENCE   AND    LIFE. 


ICtfr 


Written  in  review  of  MR.  KING'S  Lecture  with  this  Title. 

Have  you  reflected  that  the  frame  of  man 
All  nature  represents? — the  singular  fact 
That  since  the  globe  its  journey  of  light  began, — 
Laden  with  life,  completed  and  compact,— 
Even  the  proportions  of  the  land  and  sea 
In  human  corporality  agree  1 
For  science  sees  us,  with  its  certain  eye, 
Three-fourths  as  liquid,  and  one-fourth  as  dry. 

Bones  of  the  human  framework  all  proclaim 
The  globe's  stout  ligaments  and  rocky  frame; 
The  soil  is  softer  tissue,  flesh  and  skin; 
The  teeth,  the  gleaming  minerals  within; 
The  hair  the  vegetable  life  contains; 
The  river  systems,  arteries  and  veins; 
The  nerves,  galvanic  and  magnetic  flow ; 
The  food  takes  of  the  grandest  things  we  know: 
From  air,  lake,  ocean,  land  and  forest  rolled; 
Even  from  the  tropic  heats  and  polar  cold. 

The  truth  is  pictured  here,  that  life  should  be 
Nature  in  thought  and  feeling  copied  free. 


66  EXISTENCE     AND     LIFE. 

All  people  are  not  equally  alive. 
All  equally  exist,  but  life  is  higher, 
The  putting  forth  of  faculties  to  thrive, 
Bringing  all  elements  of  nature  nigher 
By  free  communion.     So  we  truly  live, 
Taking  the  nutriment  all  objects  give. 

Hold  in  your  hand  some  seeds.     You  cannot  say, 
As  you  look  at  them,  though  they  have  one  size, 
The  quantity  of  life  which  they  convey — 
Their  latent  powers  are  not  before  your  eyes. 
Drop  them  in  ground,  and  then  their  life  begins; 
Each  pellet  shoots  its  secret  forces  high, 
Each  delicate  thread  an  artful  foothold  wins, 
And  climbs  to  feed  on  clouds  and  sun  and  sky. 
But  if  one  be  a  seed  of  stately  elm, 
Another  of  fragile  herb,  the  life  they  gain 
From  the  same  nourishment,  in  the  same  realm, 
Will  be  as  their  capacity  to  attain- 
Vastly  unequal,  as  one  draws  the  more 
From  nature's  infinitg^and  vital  store, 
So,  any  hundred  babes  are  human  germs 
That  equally  "exist".    The  life  ahead 
Will  not  so  much  be  measured  by  their  terms 
Of  years,  as  by  their  faculties  instead. 

If  one  would  in  his  heart  and  thought  rehearse 
The  wealth  and  bounty  of  the  universe, 


EXISTENCE     AND     LIFE.  67 

He  would  give  praise  that  lungs  are  nurtured  free, — 

And,  if  they  numbered  myriads  more,  'twould  be. 

It  costs  no  more  than  air  or  rain  to  pour 

Into  the  nerves  a  full  electric  store; 

The  light  would  answer  for  as  many  eyes 

As  the  globe's  spacious  surface  could  comprise; 

Beauty  enough,  and  truth,  of  each,  to  charm 

As  many  minds  as  nature  e'er  could  arm; 

Mystery  and  inspiration  for  all  souls 

That  could  be  gathered  in  her  ample  folds. 

But  the  digestive  system  of  the  man 
Is  left  to  human  skill  and  social  plan; 
And  these  lack  wisdom  to  space  work  and  soil 
As  to  ensure  such  proper  meed  to  toil, 
That  labor  may  its  own  good  harvest  reap, 
And  food  be  always  plenteous  and  cheap. 
Whether  the  land  does  not  belong  to  all — 
To  man,  not  men — just  like  the  common  air, 
As  a  deep  problem,  must  continual  call 
To  the  true  thought  of  statesman  and  of  seer; 
Whether  a  system  of  property  in  the  soil, 
Which  keeps  so  many  from  a  livelihood, 
While  others  get  mere  living  for  their  toil, 
Has  not  a  larger  bane  in  it  than  good. 


68  EXISTENCE     AND     LIFE. 

We  should  be  zealous  to  forecast  the  fruits 
Of  novel  schemes  that  touch  the  mass  and  state; 
In  startling  theories,  their  intellectual  roots 
We  should  with  patient  spirit  penetrate. 


If  'tis  a  question  open  to  debate 

Whether  the  land  is  not  an  element 

As  air  and  heat  and  light  in  every  state, 

We  must  expect  to  see,  oft  and  well-meant, 

Schemes  social  spring,  till  some  great  mind  and  will 

Are  found,  our  labor  to  distribute  with  perfect  skill; 

The  products  of  the  globe  so  multiply 

That  food  shall  be  wherever  man  has  place, 

And  want  no  longer  be  the  bitter  cry 

Of  even  the  lowest  member  of  the  race. 


Distinctive  human  life  starts  when  we  rise 
To  higher  than  physical  spheres — appropriate 
To  our  own  substance  what  each  realm  supplies. 
First  thing  to  do  in  order  to  contemplate 
And  understand  life's  fullness,  in  contrast 
With  mere  existence,  is  to  amplify 
Our  views  of  the  realities  so  vast 
In  which  the  pastures  of  our  being  lie. 


EXISTENCE     AND    LIFE.  69 

Truth  is  appropriated  by  the  mind, 
Assimilated,  as  the  body  meal. 
Cohesion  and  attraction  are  inclined 
To  intellect,  as  much  as  loadstone,  steel. 
Who  understands  them,  widens  his  own  zone; 
Not  so  the  man  who  makes  prosaic  deals 
In  merchandise  and  land  estates  alone, 
And  intellectual  ardor  never  feels. 
One  gets  in  vital  union  with  them  all, 
Another  uses  them  mechanical. 

The  man,  also,  that  bread-making  sees  through, 

Deals  with  realities  therein  as  true 

As  he  who  mixes,-  stirs  and  kneads  the  dough ; 

And  derives  substance  bakers  do  not  know. 

The  man  who  the  relations  sees,  well-fixed, 

Gold  to  geology,  the  age  it  was  up-cast, 

How  it  was  washed  in  stream-beds,  with  quartz  mixed, 

How  it  is  purified,  and  turned  to  coin  at  last — 

Has  gold  in  plenty — by  intellectual  grip. 

He  may  not  have  in  purse  the  lucre,  real, — 

'Tis  his  by  a  more  subtile  ownership, 

The  die  of  Truth  has  made  it  coin  ideal. 

Thus  every  sense  is  duct  or  avenue 
Transmitting  life-material  to  the  mind; 
And  to  the  body  as  well.    Seal  up  the  view, 
Strike  the  eye's  panorama  from  mankind, 


70  EXISTENCE     AND     LIFE. 

The  life  would  palsy,  and  the  truth  would  swerve 
That  courts  the  spirit  through  the  optic  nerve. 
Destroy  the  ear,  and  all  the  truths  that  ride 
On  waves  of  sound,  in  music  or  debate, 
In  talk  or  eloquence,  no  more  abide- 
No  more  the  inner  nature  penetrate. 


And  beauty  is  as  real  as  a  flower. 
Exquisiteness  of  landscape  is  a  thing 
Substantial  as  the  land.    The  spirit's  power 
Grows  by  such  natural  aspects,  for  they  bring 
A  sustenance  as  sure  as  labor's  toil 
Evokes  in  streaming  plenty  from  the  soil. 

How  many  artists  are  by  mountains  fed ! 
The  harvests  which  the  faithful  fields  supply 
Soon  to  the  cities  and  the  seas  are  sped; 
But  these  men,  in  their  vast  capacity, 
Carry  the  rocky  ridges,  tendons,  domes, 
In  all  their  intellective  haunts  and  homes; 
They  wrap  and  wind  their  anaconda  power 
Round  natural  citadels  where  mountains  tower, 
Breathe  in  their  mists,  and  eager,  lap  their  shine, 
Drink  from  their  morning  dews  aerial  wine. 
They  feel  it  all  into  their  souls  dissolve 
Like  juices  which  the  happy  bees  evolve— 


EXISTENCE     AND     LIFE. 


Then  paint  it  on  the  canvas  of  the  heart 
With  all  the  spiritual  honey  of  their  art. 

Just  where  a  person's  deepest  interests  lie- 
Not  in  the  space  which  he  may  occupy— 
There  is  his  real  life.     The  dwelling  shows 
His  outward  place;  his  dreams  his  life  disclose. 

Burritt,  (Elihu)  learned  blacksmith,  blows 
His  bellows  in  Worcester — there  his  iron  rings; 
But,  looking  in  his  mind,  the  vision  shows 
Of  fifty  languages  with  feathery  wings. 
Look  at  his  spirit,  vast  with  lore  and  love, 
Behold  it,  lightsome,  flying  like  a  dove, 
Emblem  of  purity  that  cannot  cease — 
Faith's  figure,  also,  with  the  olive-leaves  of  peace. 

If  one  in  Ephesus  had  sought  for  Paul, 
He  would  have  found  him  working  on  a  sail, 
In  a  tent-maker's  shop.    The  tent  was  all 
In  tatters  o'er  his  head — soon  he  must  fail. 
But  there  were  mystic  breathings  in  the  air, 
And  melodies  about,  observers  never  caught; 
A  subtler  light  than  of  the  sun  played  there, 
About  his  needle,  as  he  stitched  and  wrought 
On  the  Cilician  canvas  in  his  hand,— 
"A  light  that  never  was  on  sea  or  land." 


'SUBSTANCE  AND  SHOW." 


Written  after  a  review  of  THOMAS  STARR  KING'S  most  cele- 
brated Lecture  with  this  title,  delivered  iii  1851,  when  he  was 
in  his  twenty-eighth  year. 


If  you  will  hold  a  paving-stone  in  your  grip, 

Some  written  words,  too,  on  a  paper-slip, 

Observers  will  not  hesitate  to  say 

The  substance  in  the  rock  will  far  outweigh. 

But  they  might  make  a  positive  mistake, 

Discernment  might  not  truly  be  awake. 

Suppose  the  slip  of  paper  should  contain 

The  sentence,  "God  is  love" — words  few  and  plain; 

Or,  "As  thyself  thy  neighbor  thou  shalt  love" — 

(Phrase  specially  ordained  the  heart  to  prove) 

Or,  "Men  have  like  moral  rights  in  every  age, 

Because  of  the  same  heavenly  parentage"- 

The  unsuspected  paper,  heavy  grown, 

Then  represents  more  substance  than  the  stone. 

The  earth  may  pass,  nature  in  chaos  sink, 

But  words  like  these  will  never  die  or  shrink. 

"Substance"  "stands  under"  something,  and  sustains; 
The  thing  upheld  is  safe  while  it  remains; 
Whatever,  then,  that  doth  create,  uphold, 
Though  it  may  never  to  the  mind  unfold, 


76  SUBSTANCE    AND    SHOW. 

Though  men  may  never  handle  it,  or  see, 

Is  more  substantial  than  the  thing  itself  can  be. 

And  so  the  principle  that  takes  control 

Of  all  our  way,  and  work,  and  words — the  soul — 

Holding  the  bodily  frame  at  every  move, 

Infusing  all  our  action  and  our  love, 

Its  vitalizing  current  flowing  fresh, 

Is  more  substantial  than  the  bones  and  flesh. 

A  ten-pound  weight  falling  upon  your  head, 
As  substance,  has  a  dolorous  effect;  . 
Not  so  a  Bible  leaf  if  dropped  instead, 
Say  from  the  firmament,  straight  and  direct. 
There  is  a  way,  however,  in  which  a  page 
Of  the  New  Testament  may  heavy  fall, 
And  split  a  nation  in  its  holy  rage, 
Or  strength  infuse  of  an  Egyptian  wall. 

We're  warned,  if  we  would  hold  to  solid  ground, 
Substance  is  not  confined  to  things  we  see; 
Substance  with  matter  we  must  not  confound, 
The  physical  system  leans  on  spirit  free. 
Science  steps  in  to  speak  this  truth — it  says: 
"The  world  of  matter?    Why,  there  can  be  none; 
Matter,  wherever  cast — in  all  its  ways, 
Was  wed  with  spirit  when  its  course  begun." 


SUBSTANCE     AND     SHOW.  77 

So,  everywhere  about  us,  tossed  or  fixed, 
Matter  and  spirit  infrangible  are  mixed. 
A  world  of  matter,  were  there  such,  would  be 
A  heap  of  sand  beside  a  sterile  sea; 
Or  infinite  continent  of  stagnant  fume, 
Wrapped  in  a  mantle  of  perpetual  gloom; 
No  motion,  force,  no  beauty,  order,  form, 
No  cooling  shade,  sublimity  of  storm, 
No  agitation,  no  pulsation  free, 
Nothing  in  the  universe  as  now  we  see. 

In  what  a  swelling  hymn  Astronomy  sings 
The  real  substance  of  invisible  things ! 
If  what  we  see  is  so  overwhelming  vast, 
What  shall  we  think  of  forces  unseen  massed  ? 
Vitalities  upon  whose  ample  breast 
And  in  whose  arms  all  visible  things  find  rest? 
No  Atlas  of  Greek  thought  upholds  the  sphere, 
Yet  constellations  all  are  free  from  fear, 
An  energy  impalpable  supports  them  all, 
Insuring  them  ,and  guarding  them  from  fall; 
The  same  where'er  their  luminous  flight  may  be, 
Using  no  muscles  and  no  masonry. 

An  ancient  said,  "Give  me  a  foot  of  ground 
Outside  the  globe  as  it  is  onward  whirled, 
A  spot  that  I  may  stand  on,  safe  and  sound, 
And  I  will  make  my  lever  lift  the  world." 


78  SUBSTANCE     AND     SHOW. 

A  lever,  all  invisible,  does  lift 

Our  globe  and  its  blond  lunar  partner,  too, 

And  makes  them  waltz  together,  silent,  swift, 

Twelve  hundred  miles  a  minute  in  the  blue — 

True  to  the  music  of  the  sun  in  play 

Keeping  majestic  motion  evermore,— 

And  heaves  the  systems  and  the  milky  way 

In  grand  cotillons  on  its  airy  floor. 

Diamond,  and  ice,  and  crystal,  all  are  due 
To  military  forces  underground, 
Finding  in  caves  and  crypts  employment  true, 
Their  fingers  playing  with  an  art  profound; 
Drilling  unceasing  through  the  coldest  night 
Companies  of  atoms  into  crystal  squares, 
Flashing  caprices  changeable  and  bright, 
And  "broad  and  general  as  the  casing  air." 

When  to  the  vegetable  world  we  turn 
The  forms  we  see  grow  out  of  substance,  too, 
But  still  more  stirring  are  the  facts  we  learn, 
More  wonderful  revelation  breaks  in  view. 
All  things  belong  here  to  a  common  stock,* 
But  how  they  spring  upon  such  diferent  wings! 
A  lily  is  woven  here,  there  grapevines  interlock, 
A  dahlia's  beauty  now,  now  honeysuckle  swings. 

*  Oxygen,  hydrogen,  nitrogen,  carbon. 


SUBSTANCE     AND     SHOW.  79 

In  Italy  the  orange,  Egypt,  palm, 
The  bounteous  olive,  gift  of  heaven,  in  Greece, 
In  Maine  the  pine,  Peru  the  tree  of  balm — 
A  subtle  force  gives  each  its  heart  of  peace. 

The  charming  Grecian  fancy  holds  no  more — 
That  in  each  tree  a  Dryad  lived,  to  cheer, 
And  died  immediate  the  tree's  reign  was  o'er; 
But  now  a  truth  more  beautiful  is  near; 
There  is  inhabiting  each  shrub  and  flower 
A  bright  life-spirit  that  shelters  and  defends 
Whene'er  destruction's  prowling  forces  lower, 
Silent  accomplishing  its  certain  ends. 

Look  at  the  oak,  Leviathan  of  the  fields ! 
The  senses  and  the  scales  would  say,  mayhap, 
The  substance  of  the  tree  is  what  it   weilds 
In  bulk  of  bark  and  bough,  and  leaves  and  sap, 
The  cords  of  wood,  and  moisture,  that  comprise 
Its  density  and  give  it  weight  and  size. 

Its  substance  does  not  lie,  though,  in  its  cloak, 
Its  outward  vestiture  of  leaves  and  bark, 
Or  in  its  mass;  its  substance  makes  it  oak, 
Sturdiest  of  trees  in  nature's  spacious  park. 


80  SUBSTANCE     AND     SHOW. 

Its  substance  is  its  spring  of  life  unseen, 
Coils  the  thick  trunk  within  its  hardy  hem, 
Wraps  annual  its  rings  all  sappy  green, 
And  weaves  its  bark  and  glues  it  to  the  stem; 
And  pushes  out  its  boughs,  and  clothes  its  twigs 
With  leaves  digestive;  from  the  soil  digs 
Continual  nourishment;  makes  the  roots  clench 
The  ground  with  fibrous  fingers  'gainst  the  storm; 
Watching,  that  never  overstrain  or  wrench 
Shall  bring  to  ruin  its  majestic  form. 


Conceptionjof  endurance,,  in  the  mind, 
Associated  are  with  things  we  see, 
Mechanical  implements  that  loose  and  bind, 
So  their  divorce  is  difficult  to  decree; 
And  yet  the  streaming  of  electric  fire 
That  splits  an  ash  is  nothing  to  be  weighed; 
Loadstones  that  quick  to  real  weights  aspire, 
And  makes  them  jump, — their  springs  are  not  sur- 
veyed. 

A  man  will  have  good  molars  when  he  gnaws 
A  spike  of  iron  like  a  candy-stick, 
But  hydrogen  gas  will  take  it  in  its  jaws, 
Swallow  it  greedily,  and  digest  it  quick. 


SUBSTANCE     AND     SHOW.  81 

Our  lesson,  then,  spoken  by  science  to  man, 

Is  faith  in  the  intangible  unseen. 

That  is  the  prominent  fact  in  nature's  plan, 

Matter  the  battle-ground  of  forces  keen. 

All  matter's  particles,  the  chemists  tell, 

Are  strained  up  to  endure  in  last  degree; 

The  glistening  bead  of  dew  from  whose  sweet  well 

The  daisy  nourishes  its  infancy, 

And  which  a  sunbeam  sprinkles  on  the  ground, 

Is  globular  compromise  of  powers  that  wage 

Unceasing  strife;  that  would  (so  science  has  found) 

Shake  a  whole  city  in  their  unchained  rage. 


And  so  each  matter-atom  is  the  slave 
Imperious  masters  never  let  alone; 
Caressed  and  nursed,  then  tossed  upon  the  wave, 
Next  into  caverns  or  volcanoes  thrown; 
The  plaything  of  some  strenuous  overseer- 
Slapped,  kicked  and  cuffed  along  its  whole  career. 


For  every  particle  is  forever  bound 
By  fealty  eternal  to  some  spiritual  lords; 
One  pinches  it,  another  swings  it  round, 
Another  holds  it  in  his  wiry  cords. 


82  SUBSTANCE    AND     SHOW. 

Now  painted  'tis  by  this,  blistered  by  that, 

By  heat  tormented,  then  soon  chilled  and  cold, 

Hurled  from  its  sweat  in  the  Equator's  plat 

To  where  the  Arctic's  icy  arms  enfold; 

Then,  sudden  as  its  panting  currents  freeze, 

Sent  on  far  errand  to  the  southern  sea; 

Through  transmigrations    forced — flesh;   fowl,   and 

fish— 

If,  in  some  corner  of  creation's  bound, 
The  poor  thing,  dying,  meets  its  ultimate  wish, 
Searched  out  and  whipped  to  life  again,  and  kept  in 

constant  round. 

Thus  is  the  stuff  we  handle,  weigh,  and  tread, 
Only  the  show  of  substances  that  lie — 
While  closely  to  material  objects  wed- 
Beyond  the  reach  of  the  material  eye. 


If  substance,  true-defined,  is  causal  force, 

Ideas,  as  substances,  occupy  first  place; 

For  the  whole  universe  was  from  sacred  source, 

Thought  into  beauty,  symmetry,  and  grace. 

The  word  was,  "Let  light  be,  and  there  was  light." 

Nature  is  imagery  of  ideas  divine. 

A  row  of  types  arranged  by  fingers  tight 

May  show  not  only  to  the  eye  and  mind 


SUBSTANCE     AND     SHOW.  83 

Shapes,  colors,  and  all  sensible  qualities, 
But  also  intimate  some  thought  that  rose 
In  human  intellect  and  straightway  flies 
To  show  to  others  its  own  loves  and  woes. 

So  natural  obstacles  all  do  constitute 

A  hieroglyphic  alphabet  which  states 

Great  truths  and  sentiment  that  have  their  root 

In  intellect  Infinite  that  ne'er  abates. 

Each  planet  wheels  its  circle  round  its  sun; 

Each  sun  pours  blaze  upon  the  starry  blue; 

Of  all  the  constellated  chandeliers  not  one 

But  burns  exalted  with  a  purpose  true; 

No  firmament  unfolds  its  robe  of  light 

With  fringe  celestial  but  does  part  express 

The  mind  of  God  in  its  unwearied  flight, 

And  owes  to  it  its  birth  and  loveliness. 


7'he  principle  applies  to  history  and  to  man; 

All  shows  of  social  life  do  body  forth — 

In  the  same  marvelous,  all-enfolding  plan — 

Substance  impalpable,   their  real  worth. 

Churches  and  schoolrooms,  workshops,  every  home, 

Opinion  represent.     The  eye  sees  true 

Brick,  mortar,  iron,  wood,  foundation,  dome, 

But  not  the  pregnant  seeds  from  which  they  grew, 


84  SUBSTANCE     AND     SHOW. 

The  forces  which  uphold  them  are  ideas, 
Affections,  sentiments,  conceptions,  godly  fears. 
Strike  these  from  out  a  people's  mind  and  heart, 
Its  homes  and  temples,  colleges  and  art 
Would  fall  away  like  trunk  of  sturdy  oak 
When  all  its  life-power  feels  the  lightning-stroke. 

Each  nationality  throbbing  on  the  earth 
Is  a  huge  battery  of  spiritual  force, 
To  which  each  individual,  from  his  birth, 
Contributes  something  from  his  own  resource. 
Of  two,  the  question  of  superior  power 
Might  rest  upon  their  relative  stubbornness, 
The  moral  energies  which  are  their  dower, 
And  not  upon  the  numbers  they  possess. 

France  incarnates  a  certain  temperament; 
Each  generation  steadfastly  supplies 
Of  the  same  social  force  its  complement, 
Giving  her  one  character  through  centuries. 
England  hives  passions  of  a  different  kind, 
And  the  thought,  whether  in  a  long-spun  strife, 
England  or  France  would  awful  ruin  find, 
Ending  the  nation's  un:ty  of  life, 
Raises  the  question  whether  the  Celtic  blood, 
Its  bubbling  impulses  and  martial  zeal, 
Have  higher  spiritual  qualities  and  mood 
Than  the  more  slow  and  sullen  forces  feel — 


SUBSTANCE     AND     SHOW.  85 

Than  the  rough,  obstinate  purpose  that  resists, 
The  cautious  resolution  that  persists, 
The  inner  spirit  that  backs  momentous  fight, 
And  welds  an  Anglo-Saxon  army's  might. 

In. the  campaigns  of  Wellington  in  Spain, 
The  conduct  of  the  strife  at  Waterloo, 
This  was  the  real  struggle, — a  wrestle  amain 
Of  certain  spiritual  qualities  that  grew 
In  antecedent  time.     The  charge  of  Ney 
Under  Napoleon's  eye,  was  the  gathering  roll 
And  swing  of  storm-waves, — all  things  must  make 

way, 

That  is,  all  objects  moveable;  but  such  control 
Could  not  reach  Wellington  at  all,  for  he 
Was  all  immovable  in  his  immensity. 
The  temper  of  his  men  who  stood  the  shock 
As  adamantine  columns  stand  the  rain, 
Blent  with  the  leader's  resource,  was  the  Saxon  rock 
On  which  those  splendid  Celtic  surges  swung  in  vain — 
The  beat  of  fiery  sensibility  was  one, 
The  other  was  a  patience  hard  as  stone. 

Battalion  discipline  is  of  consequence 
Greater  than  numbers  far,  because  it  binds 
A  spiritual  force  to  that  of  muscles  tense; 
Greater  is  fervor  still,  for  fervor  finds 


86  SUBSTANCE     AND     SHOW. 

Still  higher  spiritual  force.     We  wonder  how 
The  arms  of  Alexander  could  oppose 
Such  multitudes;  we  should  not  wonder  now; 
The  things  that  make  his  history  compose 
Enthusiasm,  courage,  spears  plus  brains, 
Forces  in  union — they  achieved  his  gains. 

Bayonets  are  ne'er  so  terrible  and  keen, 

3n  the  stout  grip  of  an  advancing  line, 

As  when  they're  bayonets  that  think,  that  lean 

On  God — as  was  our  Revolution's  sign ; 

No  regiments  so  perilous  with  might 

As  those  which  Cromwell  led,  when  spiritual  light 

Was  drilled  into  the  ranks  with  lasting  stay, 

And  bayonets  could  not  only  think,  but  pray. 

A  nation  or  an  army  (thus  in  every  case)  — 

All  that  we  see  of  it — is  only  show; 

The  substance  of  the  intricate  whole  we  trace 

To  unseen  sources  of  perennial  flow : 

Ideas  and  passions,  temper,  genius,  zeal, 

Are  the  sure  heritage  of  the  commonweal. 

A  nation's  power  is  made  up,  in  part, 
Of  generations  past,  whose  bodily  forms, 
Leaving  this  drama  of  the  mind  and  heart, 
Passed  long  ago  to  silence,  dust,  and  worms. 


SUBSTANCE     AND     SHOW.  87 

There  is  a  beautiful,  impressive  law 

Of  history,  by  which  all  genius  past, 

All  conquering  sacrifice,  all  thoughts  that  draw, 

Into  a  nation's  character  are  cast: 

UA  beautiful  mass  of  colors"^  — to  gratify 

And  vein  the  moral  frame  with  sensibility. 

Thus,  haply,  we  may  see 
If  but  our  thought  and  inner  sight  be  free, 
The  substance  of  the  past  lives  ever  on 
When  all  its  forms  material  are  gone. 
The  real  past  is  vitally  present,  now; 
All  that  is  visible  of  a  nation  dies, 

Its  soul  survives  somehow; 
The  truth  which  it  discovered  and  held  in  prize, 

Forever  is  preserved; 
Its'  essence,  passed  to  civilization,  lies 

Forevennore  unswerved ; 
Improves  society  in  all  its  states  and  climes, 
And  goes  as  common  property  to  after  times. 

There  is  a  civilization  green  in  age, 
That  lives  on  white  the  generations  die ; 
Laws,  principles,  and  arts  mankind  engage, 
And  form  the  structure  of  society. 


Such  a  beautiful  mass  of  colors— Addison. 


88  SUBSTANCE     AND     SHOW. 

Just  as  the  surface  of  the  globe  is  made 
Of  various  strata,  such  as  clay  and  stone, 
Which  geologic  periods  have  laid, 
And  whose  united  strength  supports  our  own, 
The  moral  world  is  comprehended,  too, 
In  layers  which  races  have  deposited, 
And  which  our  souls  subsist  upon  as  new 
\Vhile  generations  have  successive  fled. 


The  best  life  of  the  nations  that  are  gone 

Is  still  in  civilization  all  our  own; 

All  the  Old  Testament's  influence  and  power, 

Greek  character  and  literature  in  flower, 

The  heroism  and  the  law  of  Rome, 

In  part  are  woven  into  every  home; 

They're  steadily  poured  into  our  moral  li/e 

From  churches,  colleges,  through  centuries  rife, 

Though  Greek  Republics,  and  the  Hebrew  State, 

And   Roman   Empire,    fell,   predestinate. 


From  German  savages  in  forests  far, 
From  feudal  customs  and  from  ancient  war, 
From  the  Crusaders  and  their  thrilling  story, 
The  Catholic  Church  in  its  ripe  power  and  glory, 
The  life  of  Socrates,  Augustine's  thought, 
All  righteousness,  all  benefaction  wrought; 


SUBSTANCE     AND     SHOW.  89 

The  mighty  speech  of  Paul  on  Athens'  hill; 

The  thinking  of  John  Hnss,  his  resolute  will; 

What  Bacon  wrote,  andShakespear  caught  and  bound; 

What  Faust  invented,  and  what  Newton  found; 

All  the  great  victories  of  heroes  gone; 

Blood-sealed  fidelity  by  martyrs  shown; 

The  stirring  scenes  and  pictures  history  paints ; 

Holy  achievements  of  the  world's  true  saints; — 

All  pour  upon  the  world  their  soulful  sway, 

And  beat  within  the  heart  of  man  to-day. 

Our  character  is  our  substance  culminate; 

A  man  may  be  what  he  is  pleased  to  be; 

Not  circumstances  make  our  real  estate; 

Though  nature  pushes  our  activity. 

Creative  forces,  in  ascending  scale, 

With  energies  mechanical  begun, 

Up  through  the  will  and  powers  that  never  fail — 

Through  chemical  affinities — continual  run. 

Added  to  all  that  Washington  has  done, 
He  will  do  more  to  help  the  land  he  freed; 
One-half  our  area  lost  would  shock  and  stun, 
But,  robbed  of  his  great  heart  were  vaster  loss  indeed. 
His  men,  our  fathers,  took  their  faith  and  food 
From  his  majestic  calm,  and  hopeful  mood, 
And  saw  the  nourishment  of  future  ages  rest 
In  the  resources  of  a  single  breast. 


90  SUBSTANCE     AND     SHOW. 

The  stuff  of  which  a  lofty  soul  is  made 

Is  fabric  that  can  never  shrink  or  tear; 

Storms  of  experience  cannot  bend  or  fade, 

Nor  death,  with  tooth  of  savage  chemistry,  impair. 

Men  walk  the  streets,  and  seem  about  alike, 

Momentous  differences  rise  not  in  show; 

Height,  bulk,  complexion,  clothes — these  strike 

As  being  distinctions,  but  it  is  not  so. 

A  little  hill  that  dominates  the  bound 

Will  show  the  buildings  by  the  zone  enclosed; 

Disparities  in  cost  and  splendor  found 

Of  what  the  panorama  is  composed. 

So  would  its  human  habitants  appear 

If  we  could  stand  upon  some  spiritual  height, 

And  the  realities  see,  all  full  and  clear, 

Which  fleshly  tenements  hide  from  the  light. 

We  would  the  churches  of  the  city  see 

In  inner  life;  and,  higher  but  akin, 

With  grace  more  intricate,  more  capacity, 

Cathedral  spirits,  pure  without,  within, 

Like  Channing! — whose  voices  are  sweet  bells 

That  call  to  worship,  and  whose  thoughts,  like  spires, 

Are  ever  lifted  up  in  fervid  swells, 

To  talk  with  God  and  play  on  heavenly  lyres. 


DELIVERANCE  FROM  THE  FEAR  OF  DEATH. 


from  tlje  3te  ar  nf  ®f  atlj 


Written  after  a  study  of  THOMAS  STARR  KING'S  Lecture-Sermon 
with  this  title,  delivered  in  1857. 


When  into  our  own  natures  we  look  well — 
Mark  all  that  our  deliberation?  tell- 
In  vast  review  we  see  it  true  and  clear 
That  Death's  sure  doom  is  our  supremest  fear. 
A  set  of  principles,  or  such  a  tone 
Of  feeling,  as  should  make  us  all  their  own — 
Complete   emancipating  all  our  kind 
From  this  dread  thrall  of  sentiment  and  mind, 
Would  lift  the  spirit  unrestrained  and  high, 
Into  the  freedom  of  the  sea  and  sky. 

There  is  apparent  end  of  all  we  know 
And  all  that  knowledge  ever  can  bestow. 
Nature,  in  all  her  beauty,  wonder,  light, 
For  us,  at  least,  is  pre-ordained  to  blight; 
The  cheer,  the  music,  of  this  palpable  world 
Will  terminate  as  if  in  chaos  hurled; 
All  human  fellowship  will  have  an  end, 
The  ministries  of  love  no  more  attend; 


94  DELIVERANCE    FROM     THE    FEAR    OF    DEATH. 

A  vast  black  curtain  drop  from  heaven  its  roll 
Across  the  track  of  every  human  soul, 
Veiling,  forever  ending,  thick  and  tense, 
The  straining     importunities  of  sense. 

Myriads  have  pilgrimed  to  the  other  side, 

And  yet  no  single  voice,  or  chorus  wide, 

Calls  back  to  say  if  life  and  love  be  there, 

As  in  our  mortal  world  thrills  everywhere. 

No  waves  of  influence  come  with  welcome  sway 

To  break  suspense  or  clear  our  doubt  away ; 

No  answer  to  the  cry  for  spiritual  rest; 

Terrors  and  quakings  haunt  the  human  breast; 

Suspicion  of  the  woes  that  may  await 

After  the  soul  has  passed  that  drop-scene  gate. 

These  thoughts  revolved,  must  we  not  hold  it  true 
A  man's  religious  faith  is  like  his  view — 
His  view  of  deattrthat  from  conception  swells 
The  efflorescence  of  his  principles? 

There  are  some  living  souls  of  tranquil  mien, 
And  fearing  naught  that  lies  behind  the  screen, 
The  strugglings  through  it  of  intenser  light 
Are  fixed  in  their  illuminated  sight. 
They  feel  that  all  their  privileges  here, 
All  things  that  make  our  native  earth  so  dear, 


DELIVERANCE     FROM     THE     FEAR     OF     DEATH.  95 

The  largess  that  undying  natures  crave, 
Are  offered  in  the  rest  beyond  the  grave. 
They  see  no  shadow  cast  upon  their  work; 
In  all  their  paths  no  apparitions  lurk; 
No  darkened  homes  or  hearts,  no  quickened  breath, 
Nothing  that  palls  or  withers  when  they  muse  on 
death. 

Such  spirits  win  the  greatest  triumphs  here: 
Calmness  and  trust,  deliverance  from  fear. 

Experience  and  science  both  attest 

That  forms  of  dread  upon  delusions  rest. 

In  regions  of  the  highest  truth  is  found 

Prepared  provision  against  every  ground; 

Those  that  are  well  do  suffer  vastly  more 

From  thought  of  death  than  those  who  are  passing 

o'er. 

When  this  full  hour  comes,  there  is  no  strife, 
Small  dread  of  giving  up  the  bodily  life. 
Those  that  till  latest  breath  their  terrors  keep 
Are  less  than  unstrung  brains  that  cannot  sleep. 
Death  is  appointed,  and  as  natural  quite 
As  yielding  up  our  consciousness  at  night; 
The  Infinite  goodness,  pressing  ever  near, 
Takes  each  constituent  element  of  fear — 
That  this  is  true,  and  so  shall  ever  be, 
Eternal  love  now  calls  us  all  to  see: 


96  DELIVERANCE    FROM    THE    FEAR    OF    DEATH. 

Of  all  the  full  and  far-unfolding  fields 

By  science  searched  so  long,  none  haply  yields 

More  than  this  proof  of  a  beneficent  reign — 

The  distribution  and  economy  of  pain. 

The  principle  now  is  universal  met, 

That  when  pain  can  no  longer  be  firm-set 

As  monitor  to  guard,  and  warn,  and  teach, 

Or,  nearer  friend,  to  serve,  appeal,  beseech; 

When  passes  the  occasion  of  its  stay, 

Its  hands  unclasp,  and  it  is  taken  away. 

And  so,  accordant  with  this  truth,  we  find 
The  dread  of  dying  melting  from  the  mind 
When  it  no  longer  holds  an  office  true, 
Or  when  the  vital  power  is  smitten  through. 
When  it  sure  feels  that  life  must  ebb  away, 
The  will  no  more  recoils,  it  would  not  stay; 
Calls  in  its  wandering,  and  its  wondering  powers, 
And  the  affections  all  are  calm  in  final  hours. 

In  contemplation  of  life's  ultimate  drain, 
There  is  an  over-estimate  of  pain. 
"Last  mortal  agony!"  Words  of  pathetic  reach, 
Should  have  no  place  in  all  our  human  speech. 
Such  is  wise  testimony.     Life  breathes  out 
Without  a  sense  of  suffering  or  doubt; 
The  Angel  hovers  over  as  a  friend, 
The  trustful  words  of  David  fit  the  end. 


DELIVERANCE    FEOM    THE    FEAR    OF    DEATH.  97 

Our  real  deliverance  from  the  bond  of  fear — 
(The  sweetest  freedom  that  is  possible  here)  — 
Must  be  wrought  out  while  we  enjoy  the  wealth 
Abounding  in  the  boon  of  bodily  health. 
'Tis  hard  to  say,  when  final  seconds  wait, 
What  is  the  heart's  inmost  religious  state; 
But  let  the  active  life  the  best  fulfill 
Of  righteous  thoughts  and  consecrated  will. 
It  lies  in  comprehension  by  the  mind 
Of  all  the  terrors,  all  the  doubts  that  bind, 
Dispersing  them  by  principles  that  hold 
With  a  conviction  clear  and  spirit-bold; 
Which,  paralleling  life's  unbroken  length, 
"Grows  with  our  growth  and  strengthens  with  our 
strength." 

The  senses  are  the  foe,  and  strain  their  part 
Against  the  happiest  doctrine  of  the  heart. 

We  must  oppose  them,  and  our  feelings  bring 
To  see  the  soul  as  the  substantial  thing. 
The  body  is  the  soul's,  a  feeble  frame, 
And  soon  must  char  around  the  living  flame. 
In  this  perception  we  must  strenuous  stand : 
The  moral  forces  in  us  hold  command. 

Experience  which  tests,  which  educates, 
Deepens  our  moral  and  our  spiritual  states, 


98  DELIVEEANCE    FROM     THE    FEAR    OF    DEATH. 

Is  the  most  priceless  which  men  ever  get, 
Our  best  possession  and  our  largest  debt. 
Poverty  and  hardship  noble  blessings  prove 
When  they  incite  a  man  to  deeds  of  love; 
They  purify  the  heart,  correct  the  will— 
Their  purpose  ever  and  their  purpose  still. 

A  deep  and  wise  religious  culture  proves 
Its  crowning  blessedness  and  power  to  close 
The  bondage  of  a  fear  within  the  soul 
That  else  through  every  life  holds  fast  control. 
We  must  protect  ourselves,  and  not  employ 
Our  powers  in  any  line  of  sensuous  joy, 
In  scale  of  living  or  in  worldly  place, 
But  doing  duty  clothed  with  inward  grace. 
When  we  have  felt,  where'er  our  feet  have  trod, 
The  impulse  of  acquaintanceship  with  God, 
Lifted  above  all  mental  doubt  or  strife, 
Read  all  the  publications  of  His  life 
By  our  own  faculties — then  we  shall  be 
In  frame  to  know  that  immortality 
Related  to  our  souls,  is  natural  truth, 
And,  lying  just  beyond,  is  sempiternal  youth. 
So,  each  shall  see  that,  when  the  body  falls, 
'Twas  but  the  scaffolding  around  our  nature's  outer 
walls. 


YOSEMITE. 


Written  after  reflections  on  THOMAS  STARR  KING'S  "Lecture- 
Sermon  on  a  Visit  to  Hie  Yosemite  Valley,"  delivered  in  San 
Francisco,  July  29,  I860. 


Leaving  the  sheltering  forest's  quiet  mood 
Almost  without  premonishment,  we  stood 
On  the  lit  summit  of  the  southern  wall. 
Soft  murmuring,  an  arching  waterfall 
A  thousand  feet  beneath  us,  leaped  away 
As  far  again  before  its  widening  spray 
Shattered  itself  in  finer  mists,  and  fell 
On  the  pure  bosom  of  a  rocky  dell. 

This  vasty  trench,  cloven  by  Omnipotence, 
Yawning  profound,  and  challenging  the  sense,— 
From  the  wall  opposite,  a  mile  away, 
A  brook  was  pouring  down  in  foamy  play; 
Although  'twas  slipping  fast  so  far  and  deep, 
It  yet  appeared  of  its  own  will  to  creep; 
Its  current  widening  like  a  bow  of  glass, 
Threading  the  curved  green  meadow's  lap  of  grass, 
Which  nestled  happy  neath  its  limpid  falls, 
Under  the  shades  of  the  Egyptian  walls. 


102  YOSEMITE. 

Off  from  the  northernmost  cliff,  retreating  bare, 
Arose  a  wedge-like  summit  in  the  air, 
Ashy  in  hue,  above  a  field  of  snow 
Which  could  not  fasten  to  its  polished  brow, 
But  piled  around  its  base  and. melted  back 
To  feed  the  music  of  a  cataract. 

There  was  not  one  among  us  felt  or  spoke, 
When  that  surprising  vision  on  us  broke, 
That  he  was  looking  on  a  natural  freak, 
Or  patch  of  chaos  purposeless  and  bleak; 
But  sensible  something  vaster  had  been  shown 
Than  matter — that  clearer  beam  was  thrown 
From  Supreme   Majesty;   like   the   account 
When  Infinite  glory  swathed  the  holy  mount. 

Ten  years  ago  the  white  man  had  not  gazed 
Upon  the  cliffs  on  which  we  looked  amazed; 
Yet  'tis  from  thousand  centuries  they  stand 
Fashioned  and  draped  by  the  Almighty  hand. 
When  Adam  first  surveyed  the  virgin  earth, 
They  stood  in  an  invulnerable  birth; 
Ages  before  ancestral  man  waxed  strong, 
Processes  were  at  work  those  rocks  among, 
Stirring  the  soil,  touching  the  verdure's  gleam, 
Channeling  the  winding-paths  beneath  the  stream, 
That  nature's  tints  and  qualities  might  meet, 
And  the  grand  picture  which  we  saw,  complete. 


YOSEMITE.  103 

If  you  can  see  an  Infinite  purpose,  if 

Divine  relation  to  a  mighty  cliff, 

Or  verdant  landscape  lying  in  surprise, — 

Then  you  see  true,  and  see  with  heaven-lit  eyes; 

For  God  renews  and  gives  to  all  he  wrought 

Immediate  action  of  his  conscious  thought. 

All  the  great  landscapes  round  the  globe  entwined, 

Are  real  pictures  by  the  Infinite  Mind. 

One  of  his  pencils  is  each  natural  force; 

Varieties  of  substance  in  their  course 

Are  all  his  colors.     Every  nice  effect 

Of  grace  or  majesty  we  can  detect, 

Cost,  through  ten  thousand  years  of  action  whirled, 

All  the  resources  of  the  natural  world. 

If  for  a  trice  in  all  the  stretch  of  time 

His  care  and  thought  had  wandered  since  the  prime 

Of  nature,  they  had  not  grown  merely  less, 

But  dropped  into  the  vault  of  nothingness. 

A  man  may  ride  close  to  a  crag  whose  lift, 
As  he  holds  back  his  head  to  look  so  high ! 
Three  times  a  thousand  feet  without  a  rift, 
Springing  all  sheer  and  naked  to  his  eye. 
In  spray  of  waterfall  may  stand  and  see 
(So  farther  yet  on  high  the  line  is  run!) 
Edge  of  a  mountain-wall  that  seems  to  be 
The  limpid  water's  shelter  from  the  sun. 


104  YOSEMITE. 

He  may  behold  a  tower  (looking  still  higher), 
Its  broken  edges  softened  by  the  rise, 
In  likeness  of  an  incompleted  spire 
Of  gothic  minster,  straight  above  his  eyes. 
At  evening,  when  the  sun,  retreating  warm, 
Touches  no  other  of  the  valley's  charm. 
A  vast  globe  of  bald  rock,  a  mile  uprolled, 
Glows  in  the  brightness  of  the  sunset  gold.* 

Or  one  may  lie,  at  noon,  beneath  a  tree, 
Close  to  the  basis  of  a  valley  wall, 
And  his  eye,  wandering  up,  at  ease,  will  see 
A  great,  stern  presence,  lordliest  of  all; 
Stirring  the  wonder  and  the  thought  of  man — 
Magnificent  battlement,   "El  Capitan" ! 

On  its  vast  stature  not  a  crevice  shows 
Where  man  from  a  balloon  might  drop  a  plant; 
Or  caroling  bird  a  seed;  no  life  it  knows, 
Not  even  the  lizard's  scale,  or  wandering  ant. 
There  is  no  line  of  strata — not  a  mark 
For  leisure  eyes  in  its  uncurving  length — 
One  piece  of  granite,  savage,  solid,  stark; 
Sprung  up  to  guard  in  its  eternal  strength, 
The  beauty-robes  of  its  immediate  scene: 
The  flowing  river  and  the  lap  of  green. 


The  "South  Dome. 


YOSEMITE.  105 

The  bear  and  deer,  with  keener  sight  than  man, 

Have  drunk  from  those  calm  pools  since  their  first  plan 

And  looked  up  to  the  crowns  of  those  proud  crests 

Without  emotion  in  their  free-born  breasts. 

Only  man's  senses  can  appreciate 

The  majesty  that  clothes  material  state. 

It  is  because  they're  linked  with  moral  powers 

And  spiritual  agencies  forever  ours. 

The  senses  are  the  tubes  and  lenses  which 

The  mind  and  soul  employ  to  pitch 

Their  vision  over  all  the  outward  world — 

Immortal  faculties  with  sails  unfurled. 

If  they  discern  what  beasts  cannot  detect, 

Their  reaches  all  so  wide  and  high  reflect, 

Their  objects  so  diversified  and  grand, 

What  must  the  Soul  be,  in  supreme  command ! 

What  is  this  inward  emperor,  who  brings 

The  vassal  senses  to  attend  as  Kings? 

Will  we  revere  the  senses,  and  not  more  reverent  be 

Of  the  imperial  spirit  which  gives  them  dignity? 

The  thirsty  lowlands,  fed  by  snow-born  streams, 
Which  leap  to  them  from  out  their  rocky  place 
See  never-failing  bounty  and  the  gleams 
Of  Infinite  beneficence  and  grace 


]  06  YOSEMITE. 

Bending  from  high,  over  the  yawning  rent, 
Suppose  a  man  could  gather  to  his  mind 
The  earthquake  FORCES  on  those  ramparts  spent, 
The  powers  cohesive  that  compact  and  bind; 
The  nature  troops  that  tore  those  cliffs  apart, 
Clearing  a  channel  for  the  river's  flow — 
Delightful  picture  to  the  mind  and  heart, 
Gliding  reposeful  in  the  deeps  below! — • 
What  words  could  Science  give  him  that  would  tell 
The  overflowing  rapture  of  the  view 
Like  Bible  passages  of  fervid  swell, 
Poetic  ever  and  forever  true?  +  + 

How  desolate  is  human  life,  my  friend, 
Whatever  earthly  good  you  may  possess, 
If  grand  religious  scenery  does  not  send 
Into  your  heart  its  jubilant  joyousness! 
We  followed  to  a  cataract's  very  base, 
And  stood  amid  the  tremulous  rainbow  spray, 
Which,  swinging  like  a  pendulum  of  lace, 
Dazzled  the  senses  with  its  misty  sway — 


ft" Jehovah  stood  and  measured  the  earth;  and  the  everlasting 
mountains  were  scattered,  the  perpetual  hills  did  bow:  his 
ways  are  everlasting.  I  saw  the  tents  of  Cushan  in  affliction; 
and  the  curtains  of  the  land  of  Midian  did  tremble  .  .  . 
Thou  didst  cleave  the  earth  with  rivers.  The  mountains  saw 
thee  and  they  trembled;  the  overflowing  of  the  water  passed 
by." 


YOSEMITE.  107 

As  if  a  fairy  landscape  did  unfold 

Its  airy  wonders  to  the  startled  sight. 

But  not  in  secular  language  can  be  told 

That  panorama  lying  soft  and  bright; 

It  is  the  prophet's  words  the  flaming  spray 

Chants  tuneful  through  uninterrupted  play;* 

And  the  Psalm  rises,  strung  with  spiritual  power, 

To  urge  the  lesson  of  this  glorious  hour.+ 

So  many  of  us  there  are  who  have  no  part 

In  spiritual  beauty  of  the  inner  life; 

No  glowing,  quick'ning  landscapes  of  the  heart, 

But  live  upon  the  flats  in  prosy  strife. 

In  doubt  and  drought  who  never  look  aloft 

In  hope,  or  sense  of  Infinite  guard  and  care, 

Whence  shadow  falls,  and  streams  flow  singing  soft; 

Who  do  not  see  though  God  is  everywhere! 

Friend  (  in  the  tide  of  the  remaining  years 
Bestir  your  heart  with  sacred,  cleansing  fears; 
Whatever  else  may  lie  beyond  control 
You  still  may  have  Yosemite  m  your  soul. 


*  "How  great  is  his  goodness,  and  how  great  is  his  beauty!  ' 
-t-^Out  of  Zion,  the  perfection  of  beauty,  God  hath  shined. '' 


SIGHT  AND  INSIGHT, 


Written  in  the  light  of  MR.  KING'S  remarkable  lecture  with  this 
title — date  not  accessible — and  which  is  second  only  to  "Sub- 
stance and  Show"  in  majesty  of  thought  and  language. 


Vision  is  the  most  glorious  privilege 

at  our  command; 
Our  royal  endowment  among  the  senses 

is  the  eye; 
Physically,  insignificant  specks, 

on  the  earth's  face  we  stand, 
But  th'  exquisite  eye  brings  outer  loveliness 

in  limitless  supply. 

We  stand  on  less  than  a  square  foot  of  soil, 
But  visions  round  the  far  horizon  roam, 
We  look  up  from  our  pleasures  or  our  toil, 
To  find  the  zenith  only  roofs  our  home. 
The  eyes  of  animals  are  instruments 
Of  instinct,  which  greed  subjects  to  control; 
The  eyes  of  man  an  organ  full  of  sense, 
Serving  as  windows  of  the  mind  and  soul. 

There  is  a  doctrine  that  our  knowledge  comes 
All  through  the  senses,  chiefly  by  the  eye; 
But  'tis  not  so;  the  senses  yield  no  crums 
Of  knowledge ;  impressions  they  supply, 


112  SIGHT     AND     INSIGHT. 

Never  ideas.     They  seem  to  furnish  all, 
But  are  reporters  simply  to  our  call. 

The  eagle  has  a  stronger  eye  than  man. 
But  show  it  the  Apollo  Belvidere; 
It  only  sees  unmeaning  stone,  it  can 
Experience  nothing;  it  has  no  idea. 
Also,  the  stag  has  better  ear  than  man. 
But  at  an  orchestra  it  will  not  swerve; 
It  hears  a  mob  of  tones,  which  cannot  fan 
A  flame  within.    The  human  nerve 
Disposes  such  glad  music  instantly 
Into  sonatas  or  a  symphony. 

Put  a  moss-rose  to  nostrils  of  a  hound, 

And  see  if  it  will  waken,  through  his  scent, 

Any  emotion;  or  if  there  is  found 

Any  betrayal  of  a  sentiment. 

The  senses  of  an  animal  report 

All  that  the  senses,  of  themselves,  can  hold; 

But  the  dumb  creatures,  in  their  rest  or  sport, 

Have  not  the  faculty  to  arrange,  unfold ; 

And  so,  to  our  perception  ,it  appears, 

They  see  not,  having  eyes,  and  hear  not,  having  ears. 


SIGHT     AND     INSIGHT.  113 

All  knowledge  is  of  insight  the  result, 
And  education  is  a  process  of  insight. 
The  infant,  who  has  no  one  to  consult, 
Thinks  everything  lies  on  its  own  eye  aright. 
The  chamber's  furniture  and  the  parent's  face, 
Toys,  animals,  trees,  and  even  the  wondrous  sky, 
In  confused  mass,  all  lie  in  its  embrace, 
Part  of  the  tiny  stranger's  personality. 
With  gradual  wisdom,  slow,  the  little  elf 
Pushes  the  heavy  world  off  from  itself, 
And  comes  to  look  at  things  with  truer  eyes, 
Attributing  to  them  place,  distance,  size. 
It  comes  to  be  a  Herschel  by  and  by, 
The  globe  is  pedestal  of  its  imperial  eye; 
Measures  the  distance  of  the  Pleiades, 
Searches  the  heavens  even  farther  off  than  these; 
Scans  great  Orion  in  majestic  place, 
Sculptured  in  light  on  the  black  walls  of  space, 
In  armor  clad  in  his  celestial  runs, 
With  his  star-hiked  dagger  and  his  club  of  knotted 
suns. 

How  narrow  was  the  universe,  contrasted  with  our 

light, 
On  which  the  old  Greek  gazed  through  shadows  of 

his  night! 


114  SIGHT     AND     INSIGHT. 

Or  David,  when  looking,  with  no  outward  aid, 
'The  firmament  showeth  his  handiwork",  he  said! 
The  orbs  they  saw  as  dots  of  creamy  light, 
Science  has  made  expand,  in  mortal  sight, 
And  seen  them  swell  into  majestic  globes, 
That  waltz  through  all  immensity  in  rainbow  robes. 


Science  has  .spaced  them  millions  of  miles  between, 
Each  cutting  its  round  within  the  other's  track; 
Has  caught  the  plane  on  which  they  play  and  lean, 
Swinging  eternal  without  stay  or  slack; 
Measured  the  mountains  there;  discovered  snows 
That  whiten  the  poles  and  melt  in  summer-time; 
How  fast  they  spin  and  how  their  climes  dispose; 
Pictured  the  contrast  'twixt  their  age  and  prime; 
Weighed  all  their  mass  and  told  how  many  tons 
Include  those  little  dots  (those  mighty  suns!) 


Tt  has  leaped  upon  the  parent  orb,  and  torn 

Wide-ope  the  blazing  vesture  of  the  sun 

Which  he,  through  unimaginable  time,  had  worn, 

And  his  stupendous  ribs  looked  in  upon; 

Its  ever-lengthening  measuring  line  has  wound 

His  bleak,  black  substance  and  his  fire-wrapped  face; 

Its  feet  have  broke  into  his  blazing  path  and  bound, 

With  moral  daring  that  would  check  his  awful  pace. 


SIGHT     AND     INSIGHT.  115 

Yet  all  unsatisfied,  its  piercing  gaze 

Has  broke  the  spangled  roofing  of  the  night 

Into  a  measureless  and  archy  blaze 

In  which  our  solar  system  is  a  mite. 

And,  after  years  of  trial,  it  has  led 

The  tremulous  orb  to  serve;  on  which  to  lean 

Its  airy  ladder  of  light  and  spider-thread; 

And  then  has  mounted  on  it  all  unseen, 

Into  the  gallery  of  the  firmament— 

To  find  that  even  there  its  probe  would  not  relent. 

In  science  every  grandeur  of  result 
Has  been  made  possible  by  the  ardent  acts 
Of  nature's  students,  who  reverently  consult 
The  delicate  hints  of  insignificant  facts- 
Facts  all  observe  but  students  truly  grasp 
And  squeeze  till  truths  are  loosened  from  their  clasp. 


An  index  is  in  every  object  known. 

They  point  a  hundred  ways,  and  always  right; 

A  path  leads  out  from  every  stick  and  stone 

To  statics,  chemistry,  dynamics,  light; 

To  gravitation,  heat,  electric  shock, 

To  the  light  sky  and  to  the  heavy  clod, 

To  all  the  substances  in  earth  and  rock, 

And  the  whole  circle  of  the  published  lore  of  God. 


116  SIGHT     AND     INSIGHT. 

What  is  it  that  you  call  a  pebble's  weight? 

It  is  earth's  pull  upon  it  in  your  hand. 

Why  does  the  earth  pull  at  it  so,  like  fate? 

'Tis  force  of  gravitation  gives  command. 

Were  the  earth's  average  substance  not  more  dense 

Than  that  beneath  our  feet,  it  would  not  pull  so  tense. 

That  ounce  or  two  of  weight,  then,  serves  to  show 

The  globe  is  heavier  as  we  sink  below — 

That  it  is  weightier,  as  a  whole  ('tis  true!) 

Than  if  it  were  all  granite  through  and  through. 

Why  is  the  pebble  solid,  in  your  hand? 

Was  it  not,  once,  only  a  mass  of  sand? 

"Force  of  cohesion,"  is  your  sure  reply. 

But,  if  you  pulverize  it,  it  will  stay  so.     Why? 

Why  will  it  not  become  a  solid  again? 

Why  will  not  all  your  pressure  now  constrain 

To  make  it  tight,  coherent,  as  before? 

Answer  that  question,  and  I'll  ask  no  more. 

Break  the  pebble  open,  and  you  will  find 

A  sparkling  crystal — so  long  there  confined. 

Explain  that,  please.  The  stone  not  only  now  coheres, 

But  a  new  force,  of  crystallation,  appears. 

Tell  how  those  particles  were  into  order  brought, 

With  points  and  angles  regularly  wrought 

As  mathematicians's  diagram.     Pray,  tell  me  how: 

The  pebble  has  become  quite  serious  now. 


SIGHT     AND     INSIGHT.  117 

Melt  it,  you  make  a  liquid.     Raise  the  heat, 

It  is  reduced  to  gases — two  or  three. 

'Twas  only  gases,  knotted,  clinched,  complete; 

How  did  they  mingle,  so  as  slone  to  be? 

In  matter  of  thousand  forms,  gases  the  same 

Play  in  a  limpid  fervor  or  in  flame. 

The  mystery  that  in  blended  atoms  lies, 

That  will  not  open  to  the  chemist's  eyes. 

A  secret  that  the  finite  mind  must  own 

Its  impotence  to  unlock, — starts  out  of  stone. 


Again,  the  pebble  we  are  handling  now 
Is  of  a  different  kind  from  those  around; 
Came  from  another  stratum.     Tell  me  how 
It  came  in  exile  to  its  present  ground. 
How  did  it  reach  the  surface  of  the  earth 
When  loosened  from  its  own  thick  stratum's  birth? 
Geology  must  explain,  whose  central  fires 
Convulsive  threw  aloft  the  mountain  spires. 
Our  pebble  gives  another  science  room, 
To  read  its  genesis  and  foretell  its  doom. 

The  scratches  on  this  pebble  icebergs  caused, 
Grinding  it  o'er  half  the  globe  before  they  paused. 
Here  water-lines,  which  tell  that  it  has  lain 
Through  centuries  beneath  th'  unresting  main; 


118  SIGHT     AND     INSIGHT. 

And  fire-stains,  that  discourse  of  earthquake  shocks, 

The  shattering  of  castellated  rocks, 

Of  mountains  split,  and  of  the  lava-rain 

Heaved  by  volconoes  on  the  fertile  plain. 

These  forces,  in  a  system  must  united  be, 

If  you  would  cornprerend  the  pebble,  and  actually  see. 

But,  crack  the  pebble  now,  now  you  will  find 
A  marvel  that  will  agitate  the  mind: 
A  little  fossil  of  creatures  of  the  sea, 
Whose  tribe,  in  far-back  ages,  ceased  to  be. 
Just  how  it  sunk  there  we  may  never  know, 
But  the  pebble  was  fluid  then — sure,  that  was  long 
ago! 

Some  persons  dream  that  were  they  carried  away 
From  their  environment  familiar  here, 
To  where  the  other  planets  interplay; 
Endowed  with  sight  more  keen,  and  sharp  and  clear, 
And  closer  view  the  wonders  of  the  skies, 
Systems,  and  suns,  and  all  their  harmonies, 
They  would  have  evidence  of  the  Infinite  One, 
Denied  them  since  their  mundane  life  begun. 
This  would  not  help:  such  revelry  of  sight; 
Insight  they  need,  aye,  that  would  bring  delight. 


SIGHT     AND     INSIGHT.  119 

Tis  not  in  scale  the  Infinite  contracts — 
Not  even  in  expanse  of  the  starry  dome; 
But  in  the  wisdom  manifest  in  facts 
Is  found  his  spacious  and  his  gracious  home. 
The  Infinite  Wisdom  in  a  daisy  is  expressed. 
Who  looks  beyond  that  life  and  growth,  I  vow, 
For  a  more  startling  and  stupendous  test 
Of  God's  existence,  is  an  atheist  now. 
Nature  from  intellect  he  has  impelled, 
And  never  again  will  sight  or  logic  weld. 
If,  without  God,  a  daisy  can  live  on, 
So  can  a  firmament  stand,  as  firm  as  stone. 
The  process  true  is  not  to  try  and  wring  out 
An  Infinite  Mind  by  twisting  nebulae, 
But  to  look  humbly,  gladly,  all  throughout, 
Into  each  fad  of  nature,  and  there  see, 
.Reflected  Him,  as  in  a  mirror's  face: 
Source  of  all  science,  holiness,  and  grace. 

Primal  distinction  in  the  eyes  is:     Some 
See  facts,  while  others  see  for  what  they  stand; 
As  ears  are  keen  or  deaf,  tongues  free  or  dumb, 
Some  eyes  are  blind,  some  cross,  and  some  command. 
And  these  degrees  measure  all  difference 
Between  true  knowledge  and  crass  ignorance. 


120  SIGHT     AND     INSIGHT. 

in  the  domain  of  Beauty  'tis  the  same. 
Beauty,  none  of  the  senses  can  discern. 
Neither  home  creatures  nor  the  hunted  game, 
In  quiet  or  in  gambol,  ever  turn 
To  view  a  meadow's  peace,  a  river's  curve; 
The  grandeur  even  of  mountains  does  not  swerve. 
They  cannot  know  emotion's  sweet  alarm — 
They  see  the  facts  but  do  not  feel  the  charm. 

Pity  the  man  on  whom  all  bloom  is  waste ; 
Possesses  not  an  intellectual  taste; 
Brushes  the  halo  from  pure  nature's  brow; 
To  natural  truth  will  not  in  spirit  bow : 
Who  disenchants  the  light,  and  carries  eyes 
That  shave  the  twinkle  from  the  starry  skies. 
Around  the  American  mind  the  vice  is  wound 
Of  viewing  nature  as  mechanical — 
As  if  it  were  by  human  cunning  bound, 
And  earth  and  sun,  the  solar  system  all, 
Were  run  by  clock,  and  all  the  radiant  stars 
Were  whirled  by  drums  and  belts,   and  bands  and 
bars. 

A  man  would  lose  unspeakably,  if  he, 
Possessing  beauty-lore  in  fine  degree, 
Should  let  it  go  beyond  his  stout  command 
For  legal  title  to  all  New  England  land. 


SIGHT     AND     INSIGHT.  121 

His  shriveled  soul  perpetual  would  forego 
The  birthright  of  sure  dividends  of  joy, 
An  inner  flower  of  infinite  art,  for  show, 
Which  could  not  help  his  soul,  which  he  could  not 
employ. 

The  oak  is  instituted  air  and  rain ; 

It  draws  scarce  anything  from  the  rich  earth. 

Look  high  and  far !     See  every  mountain-chain 

From  rolling  wind  and  gases  had  its  birth. 

A  single  element  of  moisture  pours 

In  subtile  juices  through  the  veins  of  trees; 

In  peach  and  apple,  pear  and  plum,  conjures 

All  out  of  dew,  as  out  of  flowers  the  bees. 

'Tis  from  the  foam  of  the  tumultuous  sea 
All  verdure  that  clothes  nature,  issues  free. 
If,  every  spring,  it  should  miraculous  rise 
From  the  salt  deeps — if  all  it  might  comprise — 
If  all  the  trees,  all  fruits,  and  all  the  grain, 
Should  leap  at  once  above  the  briny  main, 
And  wafted  be  by  magic's  unseen  hand 
To  line  the  rivers  and  adorn  the  land — 
The  whole  would  only  sensuous  portray 
A  scientific  fact.    The  sunbeams  play 
Coaxes  the  vapor  from  the  seas  away; 
The  winds  impel  them  o'er  the  thirsty  land, 


122  SIGHT     AND     INSIGHT. 

Impartial  blessing  slope  and  plain  and  strand; 
They  drop  in  dew,  or  pour  relieving  showers 
Pure  promise  of  the  harvest  and  the  flowers; 
They  robe  e'en  rocks  with  green,  and  spread  the  face 
Of  nature  with  all  loveliness  and  grace. 


If  we  could  find,  in  all  our  worldly  sphere, 
A  person  who  should  know  a  single  man, 
A  person  he  would  be  who  comes  as  near 
To  knowing  everything  as  finite  creature  can. 
Man  stands  at  the  apex  of  the  pyramid; 
All  natural  fatness,  juices,  flavors  hid, 
Converge  forever,  and  forever  fresh, 
To  enrich  his  blood  and  to  renew  his  flesh. 
They  incarnate  themselves^  the  light  and  heat, 
Chemical  affinities,  do  all  repeat 
The  mystery  of  their  breadth  and  length, 
And  circulate  around  him  to  refresh  his  strength. 

Our  spirits  step  into  our  bodies,  to  ride; 
And  wield  the  harnessed  forces  which  we  stride. 
Out  of  three  roots  the  tree  of  nature  grows — 
Truth,  Beauty,  Good.    Far  up  its  mighty  stem, 
With  measuring  rod,  the  man  of  science  goes; 
And  sees  its  silver-swaying  branches  gem 


SIGHT     AND     INSIGHT.  123 

The  firmament.     The  poet's  soulful  sight 
Rests  on  its  symmetry,  its  arch  of  grace, 
Its  flush  of  fruit,  and  all  the  flame  of  light 
That  burns  around  it  in  its  "pride  of  place." 
Only  to  him  with  finer  eye  than  both, 
Unveils  the  secret  how  it  feeds  and  thrives; 
He  sees  all  clear  the  glory  of  its  growth, 
And  the  perennial  springs  from  which  it  lives. 
The  burning  bush  the  solemn  prophet  saw 
Was  miniature  of  nature,  love-illumed; 
Aglow  with  spirit  by  eternal  law — 
Always  aflame — forever  unconsumed. 


THE  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  SANTA  CRUZ 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  DATE  stamped  below. 


50m-l,'69(J5643s8)2373 — 3A,1 


PS3537.H98T5 


3  2106  00214  5123 


